Stitching Stuff: Week 47 of 2020

It was one of those weeks for me.  Deadlines unfortunately are real things and I spent a lot of time this last week working to meet mine. That cut into my stitching (and blogging) time this last week.  How about you?  Was this an excellent week for you or did life have other plans for your stitching time? You can link up at the bottom of the post to share how the stitching went this week.  

I stayed late at work several nights last week and went in early a couple of days to stay on top of looming deadlines.  That cut into my stitching time this week.  

• 15 minute days/week = 5/7 days
• 15 minute days/Nov = 17/21 days
• 15 minute days/2020 = 291/326 days
• Success rate = 89.26%

So not a perfect week.  A couple days all I managed to fit in was 15 minutes. This was a week that I really needed those 15 minutes of sanity when I could get them in.  Thankfully I'm off all this week, though I'm on call Wednesday if they need a supervisor on site.

One of the things on the to do list for this next week is to make some Christmas themed face masks.  I ordered some fun novelty Christmas fabrics from Spoonflower when they had their half off fat quarters sale last month. 

I think my favorite is the elves (gnomes?)   The characters on the Nutcracker fabric may be too big for a mask. I may have to cut off a few legs. 

That was my stitchy week. I'm hoping for a lot more stitching time this week.  My Guy and the Scientist in Training have put their heads together on Thanksgiving dinner. It will just be the three of us this year. And we are thankful we can do that much this year. The SIT has been especially careful about contact with others so she could come home this week. Campus is closed for the whole week, which is nice. She'll have a chance to recoup a bit before she ends back for dead week and finals.   

How was your stitching week?  

1. Julie in GA 2. karen 3. Chrisknits

4. Meloney 5. Shasta @ High Road 6. DawnyK

7. Amanda 8. Quilting Gail

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Stitching Stuff: Week 46 of 2020

November is half gone, Thanksgiving is a little over a week away. This time of year the days seem to pass so much faster.  I find it harder to keep up with my stitching time as the daylight hours get shorter. How about you, do you find it easier or harder to work in some regular stitching time? 

I bucked my normal seasonal trend and had a pretty good week on the stitching front. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Nov = 12/14 days
• 15 minute days/2020 = 286/319 days
• Success rate = 89.66%

It will be a challenge this next week to work in some stitching time as a major project is due at work and end of year performance reviews need to be completed by Thursday. So there may be a few late nights.  At least I have a week of vacation to look forward to once this week is done.  

How about you?  How are you doing at finding time to stitch?  

1. Julie in GA 2. karen 3. Chrisknits

4. Meloney 5. DawnyK 6. Deana

7. Quilting Gail 8. Shasta @ High Road

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To Do Tuesday for the Week of 11/10/2020

Last week was one of those weeks.  It was hard to focus on much and even the sewing room was not enough of a distraction.  This week is going to be better, just busy. My meeting calendar is pretty packed for the next 2 weeks.  Even with the distractions last week, there was still some good progress on the To Do List.  

To Do List for 11/2/2020

• Christmas Mystery Quilt:  bind ✔
• Daisy Chain: Find a backing fabric ✔
• Red, White &Blue Stars: Add first border - progress
• Unity: Finish Step 4, start step 5 ✔

Definitely a good week on the progress front. Finishing a quilt is always a mood boost. So what's the plan for this week?  

To Do List for 11/10/2020

Daisy Chain:  Make back, prep for quilting

I've worked out the dimensions for the back in the my quilt notebook.  This will be a very simple back to piece, just sewing two lengths of fabric together.  The hardest part is getting the pieces measured and cut accurately.  The plan is to have Daisy Chain ready to ship out for quilting when Frolic comes back.

Red, White & Blue Stars:  Continue to work on adding borders

 Red, White and Blue Stars, Setting self designed

Two border strips are attached and the next two are cut and ready to add. Hopefully I'll get the first and second borders done this week. The plan is for three borders, but I doubt I get all three done this week. Adding borders always takes longer than I think it should.  

Morewood Mystery:  Make more blocks for November clue

Morewood Mystery by Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs

November's clue uses pieces from previous clues to make larger units, plus there are more HSTs to make.  I won't get to the HSTs this week. That's OK, I have the whole month to complete this clue.

Unity:  Add next border and make Clue 5 blocks

The next border is a narrow strip of background fabric, so that should go on relatively quickly. The next round of the quilt uses flying geese made from the green, yellow and black fabrics.  I've made a start on the green.  But have a ways to go on getting this clue all finished.  

I've come to appreciate putting together a to do list each week.  Being deliberate about what projects I work on has been a big help in getting projects finished.  Thanks Roseanne for introducing me to the power of a good list.  And thank you for hosting the To Do Tuesday linky party to let us share our successful and not so successful weeks.  

This n That

It was a beautiful weekend, though it was pretty windy yesterday.  I'm glad we did some photography on Friday, the winds did a good job of striping the leaves off many of the trees. It won't be long before the trees are all bare.  

The sewing room saw a bit of action this weekend.  The binding on the 2019 Christmas Mystery quilt is done. But that happened at 10 PM last night, so there hasn't been a chance to take the glamor shots of the finished project.  

Bordering seemed to be the theme at the sewing machine this weekend.

The first round of borders for the Red, White and Blue Star quilt are in the works.  Then I finally finished another pieced border strip for Unity and stitched it to the rest of the quilt.

Unity, 2020 Bonnie Hunter Sew-In-Place Quilt Along

That finishes off the stitching in Clue 4.  I didn't exactly follow Bonnie's directions for the Friendship Star blocks in this clue, but I'm happy with my variation.  Clue 5 includes another narrow border strip and a set of flying geese.  Hopefully, that one will go a lot faster than clue 4 went.  

I'm hoping for a quiet and much less stressful week. Saturday, the single day count of COVID cases in out state was over 4000.  I'm definitely not planning on going any place other than work and home this week. So hopefully that means more stitching time. 

Linking up with the weekly show and tell parties over at Monday Making and Design Wall Monday. 

Stitching Stuff: Week 45 of 2020

It's been a week with a lot of uncertainty on both the public and private fronts in our house.  So it was a stressful week on a couple of fronts. The family stuff got sorted out yesterday to a good ending. So at least that stress is gone. So it wasn't the best week for stitching.  When it gets really stressful, a good book is a better distraction and spending even just 15 minutes in the sewing room just doesn't appeal.  How did you fare this week in finding both the time and motivation to stitch?  

When I'm not sleeping well, rotary cutters take on a new danger and the seam ripper sees a lot more action. So there are some days when trying to force those 15 minutes can take projects in the reverse direction. This week had a couple of those days. 

• 15 minute days/week = 5/7 days
• 15 minute days/Nov = 5/7 days
• 15 minute days/2020 = 279/312
• Success rate = 89.42% 

I'm still exceeding my 2020 goal to get in 15 minutes of stitching at least 85% of the time.  Fingers crossed that this week is much calmer on all fronts.  You can link up at the bottom of the post and share how your stitchy week went. 

There's been some slow stitching going on this weekend. 

I've stitched past two corners on the binding for the 2019 Christmas Mystery quilt.  I don't know if I'll get this done today or not. If not I'll come close.  Linking up with Slow Stitching Sunday over at Kathy's Quilts. 

Photography has taken a bit of a back seat this year.  But on our way to pick up take out for dinner the other night, we had to stop and photograph the fall color in downtown.  

I only had my phone with me, but you use what you've got if you don't want to miss a shot. I like all the shadows the lamp light provides, it really makes the leaves just glow. 

That was my week. So how did your stitchy week go?

1. Julie in GA 2. Meloney 3. CathieJ

4. karen 5. Shasta @ High Road 6. DawnyK

7. Amanda 8. Quilting Gail 9. Deana

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