February 2025 PHD Report

No surprise that February went fast.  I just wasn't ready for how fast it went.  Now that we've moved into March, it's time to post a February PHD report and join the linky party over at P Designs USA.  

There's been no change in my PHD tracking sheet. 

No finishes, but no new starts either.  So not good, but not bad either.  Though I've not had any finishes, there has been progress on several projects.  

To get finishes, backings are needed. I didn't get very far with my plan to move Chocolate Marshmallows (Seabreeze Quilts) closer to finished, but I did at least find the fabrics and figured out how to piece the back. Moving this project closer to finished was my Chookshed Challenge for February.   

Progress on Wild and Goosy (Bonnie Hunter) was limited. I didn't get many blue blocks finished.  The March RSC color is yellow and all those blocks are finished.  I'll keep working on the blue blocks this month along with sashing the finished yellow blocks.  

Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt (Kevin the Quilter) blocks continue to be my leaders and enders project this year.  I'm more than half way on each color. 

I had hoped to get farther along with the Marble Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs) project during February.  I've made a lot of progress the last few days in prep for meeting the deadline for the quilt parade from this mystery.  All that progress will show up on the March report.  

The March block for the 2025 Guild BOM was finished. One quarter done with this project. 

Most of the month was spent working on the Stay at Home Round Robin project (Quilting Gail). I managed to finish border 5 by the end of February. There was a lot of progress on border 6 in March, but this is where the project was at the end of last month.   

Even with all the focus on one project, there was no change in my project tracking spreadsheet.  

Maybe not my best month for the PHD challenge. At least there was good progress on one project this month. The plan is to do better in March.  

To Do List for The Week of 03/04/2025

In spite of a weekend of pretty much nothing but stitching time, I still didn't do so well on my to do list for last week.

 

To Do List for 2/25/2025

1.  2025 SAHRR: Finish borders, 4, 5 and 6 - progress

2.  2025 Guild BOM: Start on April Blocks - no progress

3.  Chocolate Marshmallow: Assemble backing - no progress

4.  Marble Mystery: Finish assembling quilt - progress

5.  Wild and Goosey: Make blue blocks, start sashing yellow ✔

6.  Summer Scrap Quilt: Continue as leaders and enders ✔

It wasn't a bad week, I just had way too much on my list.  The Stay At Home Round Robin is pretty intense, with a new prompt each week.  If I concentrate on it, it's hard to get much else done. So a to do list of 6 was probably not wise. There are a couple of deadlines that drove the longer list.  It's the same for this week. But I'm hoping after this week, I can back off and slow down a bit and concentrate on some longer range goals for 2025.  

To Do List for 3/04/2025

1.  Marble Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Finish quilt assembly

The deadline for submission for this mystery quilt parade is tomorrow.  I've got all but 2 rows pieced, I just need to finish those, assemble and add the borders.  Doable if I make this my priority for today. 

2. 2025 Guild BOM: Start April Blocks

I only have two weeks till the next meeting and these blocks need to be finished.  

3.  2025 SAHRR (Quilting Gail):  Finish 6th border and add final borders. 

All the blocks for the 6th border are finished. I have till the 26th to get all the borders added.  That's doable.  

4. On Ringo Lake (Bonnie Hunter):  Find project box, determine next steps. 

On Ringo Lake is my pick for #2 for the Chookshed Challenge.  Grad Girl asked for a quilt for one of the guys graduating from her group and she picked out this one as one he might like. I've not done any work on this quilt since 2019. First step is to find the project box and figure out how many more blocks I need to make and if I'm sticking with Bonnie's setting plan or not.  

5. Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Assemble yellow blocks into 9-patches. 

The RSC color for March is yellow, but I've finished all the yellow paper pieced blocks for this project.  I've also finished all the orange and almost all the red. So the best plan to move this quilt forward seemed to be getting the blocks assembled into 9 patches prior to actually assembling the quilt.  I'm also continuing to assemble the blue paper pieced blocks. That's the color I have the least of and need the most of in the quilt.   

6. Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt (Kevin the Quilter): Continue and leaders and enders.  

Both my blue and yellow piles have exceeded 100 blocks. This has been a really good leaders and enders project.   

That's my list for this week.  If I can make progress on each, even they aren't completely checked off, I'll be happy.  Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday. 

The 2025 SAHRR: Borders 5 and 6

I spent a lot of time in the sewing room this weekend playing catch up with the 2025 Stay At Home Round Robin (Quilting Gail).

Last time I posted about this project only two sides of border #4 were finished and attached.  I did finish all the log cabin blocks for border #5.  

I must admit, I stole the log cabin corner idea from several other bloggers.  I don't remember everyone that used that approach, but thank you for sharing that idea.   I decided to use the prompt for border #6 to fill in the the rest of the border.  

I tried kite blocks.  Those just didn't work with the previous borders.  Coming up with another block that starts with K didn't work for me either.  So I pushed the boundaries of the prompt and went with a block that starts with the first initial of my last name. 

The square in a square blocks worked out pretty well.  The side borders are finished. The top border has all the blocks made and is partially assembled.  The blocks for the bottom border are at the sewing machine.  So I didn't quite finish that last border, but I'm close.  The plan is to add a couple of non-pieced borders to enlarge and finish up this project.  I'm hoping to have border 6 done and all the remaining borders done by the time the final parade is up later this month. I'm pretty happy with how this came together.   

Linking up with The Darling Dogwood for Round #6.  Also linking up with my regular Monday linky parties of Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.

Stitching Stuff: Week 9 of 2025

 

This week was one of recovery for me.  The trip to Texas to see Grad Girl was a lot of fun. The timing of the trip coincided with a concert that both Grad Girl and I wanted to go to.   

 

We had pretty good seats and thankfully were able to sit for the whole concert.  The artist was Taemin, a member of the Kpop group Shinee.  This was only my second Kpop concert and it was a very good one.  The first one was a lot wilder.  Shinee is one of the older Kpop bands, so many of the fans were older and not young girls. That makes a huge difference in how well you can hear the music. At least that was my take away from this concert.  I'm lucky that Grad Girl's friends think it's fun that her mom likes Kpop and didn't bat an eye at me tagging along. 

I did take my sewing machine along on the trip and got lots of sewing done over the weekend. I drove back on Monday and was just too tired when I got home to do anything on the stitching front. That day off shows up in this week's stitching metrics.

• 15 minute days/week = 6/7 days
• 15 minute days/Feb = 25/28 days 
• 15 minute days/2025 = 55/60 days
• Success rate = 91.67%

Definitely not the year I had in 2024. But keeping my success rate over 90% is still really good.  I've been playing catch up on chores and on my rest.  The problem with hanging out with young women 40 years younger than you is that it really messes up your sleep schedule.  Though I've more than spent my 15 minutes on the stitching front each day, I've not really had a whole afternoon of stitching time, so I'm not doing so hot on my to do list for the week. I still have a few days to check off a couple of things.  

How are you doing this week at finding the stitching time to check off items on your to do list?  

1. Gretchen 2. Julie in GA 3. maggie f 4. Melissa G 5. Deb in Canada

6. Karen 7. DonnaleeQ 8. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting 9. Quilting Gail 10. Andrée at Quilting & Learning

11. Frédérique 12. Jennifer in Indy 13. Bonnie in Va 14. amanda 15. Marsha's Spot

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Week 135 Photo Challenge: Pattern

It's been a month since my last photo challenge post.  My Guy as usual has been ready for me to post since the week after the last post.  Grad Girl and I were the ones that drug this last challenge out.  It's not a particularly hard one. 

I just wasn't motivated to get any photos and Grad Girl is in the middle of writing her thesis and trying to keep up with her Industrial Statistics class.  We finally got our act together this week and I have 3 photos to share.  

Pattern has a lot of definitions according to the Merriam Webster dictionary.  My photo fits the "a natural or chance configuration".  

Kate: Circles and Squares

The square slots of the wine rack from a definitely pattern and so do the round tops of the bottles.  Don't you think this meets the definition above?  

My Guy's photo also fits the definition above.  

My Guy: Reflected Pattern

As the weather has warmed up My Guy has been taking the chance to get out and enjoy it via walks after work.  He's been taking some gorgeous sunset photos this week.  

Grad Girl really hasn't had time to concentrate on getting any photos. She has class two days a week, homework and an exam for class. Plus she's teaching 3 organic laboratories with all the associated grading. All of that and trying to write her thesis.  So I took a gander through the photos she's texted me over the last month and found one that fit a different definition of "pattern".  

Grad Girl: Animal Behavior

Queenie has a thing for pens or pen shaped items. Plus if Grad Girl is home, this kitty has to be somewhere close to her.  Studying while the cat is trying to play with your eraser (at one point Queenie had it in her mouth) is funny, but also frustrating.  According to Merriam Webster as pattern can also be  "a reliable sample of traits, acts, tendencies or other observable characteristics of a person, group or institution".  That doesn't mention animals, but I'm sure it still applies.  Don't you think so too?  

I drew the next challenge card and it may take us another month to pull photos together for this one. 

Should be an interesting set of photos.