Week 96 Photo Challenge: Balance

We've all had a busy week. Grad Girl's been working on new experiments. It was My Guy's last work week of the year. I made the trip back to my Mother's to drop off the family Christmas gifts. So all of us were a bit last minute with our photos for the week's challenge. 

I found my subject by staring off into space trying to think of a photo and realizing it was literally just sitting (floating) there.  

Kate: Balanced Birdie

This plastic birdie is perfectly balanced on the edge of the computer desk.  I don't remember where this came from. I'm pretty sure My Guy and Grad Girl bought this on one of our trips because they didn't think it would work.  So this bird has been on the corner of the desk for several years.  It's become such a part of the office that you really just don't notice it.  

My Guy had taken some photos this week, but wasn't really happy with any of them.  We were out shopping all day yesterday, so when we got home he was determined to get a better shot.  

My Guy: Duplex of Cards

How he comes up with these unique ideas is always amazing to me.  We didn't get home till after 9 PM and were already tired. He pulled this shot together in a few minutes.  

My favorite photo this week's is Grad Girl's.  

Grad Girl:  D&D Balance

Normally she takes a photo in the lab, but I'm pretty sure when I texted her to remind her to get a photo she was already home.  But she improvised.  You do wonder how she got all those odd shaped Dungeons and Dragons dice to balance on each other.  

So even with last minute photos, it wasn't a bad week.  My Guy drew this week's challenge card.  He said he was going to pull a good one for this week.  

He did!  We really do a random draw each week. The cards are shuffled and then we fan them out and one of us picks.  How he managed to pull this one the week before Christmas is really amazing.  I don't think we'll have any problems coming up with photos for next week!  

To Do List for the Week of 1212/2023

Only two Tuesdays left in 2023?  December always seems to speed by.  I'm definitely not ready for the end of the year.  My holiday to do list has just about preempted my quilting to do list, but it is that time of year.  Even so, I didn't do too badly with last week's to do list. 

To Do List for 12/5/2023

1. Indigo Way: Continue clues 1 and 2, start clue 3 ✔

2. Malted Mystery: Finish clue 5, start clue 6 - progress

3. Rhododendron: Finish pieced borders - progress

4. Melodic Mystery: Make label and binding, trim quilt - progress

5. Chilhowie: Leaders and enders project ✔

6. Fabric organization: Cut/sort scraps/press fabrics ✔

My goal is progress, so to have progress on all the items even if they aren't checked off is still a good week. 

This week's to do list is still pretty ambitious.  If I can check off a few, but make progress on rest, it will still be a good week.  

To Do List for 12/12/2023

1. Indigo Way (Bonnie Hunter): Continue clues 1, 2 and 3, start clue 4

I'm almost done with clue 1, just one more set of HSTs to stitch together. Clue 2 is halfway finished. Clue 3 has been started, but I don't have any finished units yet.  

2. Malted Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Finish clue 5 and start clue 6

I finally finished the first block in clue 5. I'm really enjoying the fabrics I picked for this year's mystery.  I've gotten started on the last part of clue 5.  That should go fast and then I can get started on clue 6.  

3.  Rhododendron Mystery (Bonnie Hunter): Finish the pieced borders. 

I forgot that the last two border strips also had pieced blocks.  I've got those measurements figured out, the fabric cut, now I just have to assemble them.  

4. Melodic Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Finish making binding, sew to quilt.  

The label is made, the binding is almost sewn together.  Hopefully this will be a finished quilt before next week. The handwork may take longer, but we'll see how it goes.   

5. Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter): Continue as leaders and enders project.

I'm hoping to finish the all the blocks by the end of the year. I'll still have the sashing to piece, but getting the blocks done is the big job.  

6. Fabric organization: cut/sort scraps and press fabrics.  

That's a pretty ambitious list.  If I can make progress on all of that, even if none of it is checked off, it will be a good week.  

Linking up with The Quilt Schmilt: For the Love of Fabric for To Do Tuesday.  

Nothing on the Design Wall

I spent a lot of time in the sewing room over the weekend, but don't seem to have much to show for it.  Here's the last round of chain piecing sitting by the machine.

The purple and yellow pieces are the last two pieced borders for Rhododendron.  The maroon strips are to bind Melodic Mystery.  The pile of light blue, red and dark blue are the most recent subunits for Indigo Way.  Only 4 more HSTs and clue 1 will be finished.  I'm about half way done with clue 2 and just barely got started on clue 3.  The teal and white block is for Malted Mystery.  I spent more time cutting fabric to proceed with next steps than anything else.  Projects are moving along, there's just nothing really photo worthy. 

My weekend morning sewing time I've dedicated to scraps and fabric organization.  Here's all the scraps that were processed yesterday. 

The oldest scrap is that 5" strip of orange/yellow batik at the end of the middle row.  That's left over from the first quilt I made for our bed.  That fabric was purchased in 2008.  The pink polka dot fabric in the middle row was used in a quilt for a coworker's 5 year old  who had brain cancer. That daughter is 17 now.  The red and blue plaid on the bottom row is the backing for my current recliner quilt finished in 2017. The green and white floral scrap in the first row was a in scrap bag I won during a blog challenge. I'm surprised at how well I remember which scraps went in which quilt.   

So nothing exciting to link up with the Monday Design Wall and Patchwork & Quilts.  I'm going to need a very productive Monday afternoon to be able to check off a few items from my to do list.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 48 of 2023

Just 3 more weeks left in 2023!  That's really hard to take in.  Have you started crafting your goals for 2024?  I've given mine some thought here and there.  I've made a start on my quilt plan for next year, but that's about it in terms of written commitments.  The 15 minutes to Stitch/Stitching Stuff linky party will continue next year.  Some days I still need encouragement to get into the sewing room.  Though scrap and fabric management will be a bigger part of my Sunday linky party post in 2024. Fingers crossed I can keep that up next year.  

It was a good week on the stitching front. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days 
• 15 minute days/Dec = 9/9 days
• 15 minute days/2023 = 291/343 days
• Success rate = 84.84%

The week of Christmas will probably be the hardest to keep up with my stitching plans.  But even if that week is a complete bust, I've done well on moving a number of projects along.  

My focus on scrap processing and yardage organization continued for another week.  I can tell there's been some progress on cleaning out scrap bag #1. 

You can definitely see more of the white insides of the bag after another round of scrap processing this last week.  Still a long ways to go, but it's nice to actually see there's been progress.  

There was also good progress the fabric pressing this week. 

Four - 4 yard cuts, one yard cut and a half yard cut are all now pressed and neatly folded in the fabric closet.  I'm getting to the bottom of the bin.  Looks like I'll be pressing a lot of red fabrics this next week.  There are more fabrics under those.  Maybe another 2 weeks before this is completely empty?  

How are you doing with your stitching time?  

1. Gretchen 2. maggie f 3. Julie in GA 4. Karen 5. DonnaleeQ

6. katie z. 7. Laurie at Laurie's Place 8. Shasta @ High Road Quilter 9. Frédérique 10. Andrée

11. Bonnie in Va 12. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting 13. Jocelyn @CNN 14. Deb in Canada 15. Quilting Gail

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

Week 95 Photo Challenge: Ballons

With My Guy out on the road this week, I wasn't sure he'd have the opportunity to get a photo this week.  But he got home a day earlier than planned and so was able to play with his camera a bit.  This week's challenge was on the surface pretty straight foward. 

Since we've not had a little one in quite a while, the blow up ballons just aren't as common in our house as they once were.  So we all decided to be creative this week and prehaps stretch the meaning just a bit.

Kate: Glass Ballons

We'd be more likely to celebrate birthdays now with these ballon shaped wine glasses. It's so hard to get photos of glass without lots of reflections of the light sources, this one worked out pretty well.  

My Guy went with a completely different interpretation of the word ballons. 

My Guy: Emotional Support Ballons

  

Definitely not what I was expecting.  His photo and mine could be the beginning of a theme for this challenge. It's definitely the time of year many of us could use some emotional support for one reason or another.  

Grad Girl's photo doesn't really fit that theme. 

Grad Girl: Bulboons

She's been really busy in the lab the last few weeks trying to get lots done before her holiday break.  For any of you that haven't worked in a lab, these are pipette bulbs, or as she's labeled them bulboons, they are used to transfer liquids in the lab.  You don't blow these up, but controlling the air in the bulbs allows you to draw up and expell liquids from the glass tubes.   

The fun part of running our own challenge is that we can decide what works and what doesn't.  This week, we may not have stuck the challenge as closely as could have, but when we have to improvise, I think we get more interesting pictures.  I pulled the challenge card for this week.  

I'm curious to see what we all come up with this week.