Daisy Chain: Playing Catch Up

It's catch up time for the Daisy Chain Mystery quilt along. 

Alison is giving everyone three weeks to get all caught up on the bits and pieces needed to start assembling the next step on May 6th.  But you can link up today over at Little Bunny Quilts to show off all the progress on your block components. 

Here's a sampling of my bits and pieces for the twin sized quilt.  I've finished all but the border block D (far left) pieces.  I only need 8 more of those and I'll be ready for the next step when it gets posted.  I'm very curious to see how all these pieces fit together in the final quilt. 

Checking One Off the To Do List

It's been a whirlwind month.  April started with a week long business trip, followed by two weeks of some type of respiratory crud, a trip to see the Scientist in Training for Easter and then a weekend away for a family wedding.  Not a lot of time for stitching, so I wasn't sure that my "to do" item for the April One Monthly Goal was going to get checked off the list. 

The plan was to finish the binding on the Christmas Mystery quilt. With all the travel and not feeling well, it wasn't as easy to get all those hand stitches in, but that did happen last week.  I finally got decent pictures last night, just in time to post today. 

Ho Ho Ho (Christmas Mystery)
designed by Carrie Randall (Quilter's Hideaway)

This was a fun mystery quilt along. I also learned how to make a Dresden plate block, that was a new skill.  My favorite block is probably the nutcracker.  I embroidered on facial features because My Guy thought it was too creepy left blank. My Guy was right, the nutcracker looks more finished and polished with the mustache.  The poinsettia border fabric has been in the stash forever.   The blocks were made from scraps and left overs from other projects. I can't claim it emptied any of the stash bins, but no new fabric was added.  

I'm pretty pleased with the label.

Yes, I know it says March 2019. It was supposed to have been finished last month, but it didn't happen.  In 10 years it won't matter if it got finished in March or April, it was at least finished in the right year.  I'm planning to keep this one for myself to use at Christmas time.  

The talented Trudy custom quilted this one with a swirly beard and swirling snowflakes in the block backgrounds. She kept the whimsy I was aiming for with the quilting.  

This is quilt finish number 2 for 2019.  So I'm 1/6th of the way to finishing off my UFO PHD for 2019.

Just ten more UFOs and three new starts to finish off before December 31st.  I may be just getting a bachelors degree this year.

Linking up with The One Monthly Goal April Finishes, Monday Making and Design Wall Monday.  Ho Ho Ho is also on my second quarter list for the 2nd Quarter 2019 Finish Along, so I'll be linking up there come July.  

Week 17 of 2019: Stitching and De-stashing

Finding time for all the things you want to do once you've managed to get through even part of the stuff you have to do or are supposed to do is tough.  Finding (taking?) those 15 minutes to play with fabric is so worth it, it adds a bit of sanity into what recently has been a packed on the go schedule with not a lot of down time.  How did you do this week at finding a bit of serenity in middle of the daily run around? 

The respiratory crud finally decide to quit tormenting me, so it was easier this week to not only fit the time to stitch, but actually feel like doing some stitching.

15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
15 minute days/April = 19/27 days
15 minute days/2019 = 105/117 days
Success rate = 89.74%

By rounding rules, I'm back to my goal of stitching 90% of the time. Hopefully, there won't be any other months like April this year. There is one more business trip planned for July, but it's only a two day one, rather than a week long one.  May will be a bit busy. Moving the Scientist in Training into an off campus apartment (I think the plan is for her and her roommate to stick it out there till they both graduate).  Hopefully that will be about it.  I'm ready for a few weekends at home to tackle a few have too chores, plus fit in a solo sewing retreat for one weekend. Hope your stitching week was a good one.  You can link up at the bottom of the post to share how your stitching week went.  

Reporting on the stash usage has been hit or miss this month. There's been a bit of stash out this month. 

Fabric out this week = 0.33 yards
Fabric out for 2019 = 19.25 yards
More out than in for 2019

I've done a good job of staying out of quilt shops and just deleting the quilt shop emails.  I keep reminding myself of all the fabric stashed away in the sewing room.  I'm going to try really hard to make even just a little dent in what's been stashed away over the last few years.  Linking up with Quiltpaintcreate for the stash report. 

How did your stitchy week go?  

1. Julie in GA 2. Marti 3. Meloney 4. Chrisknits

5. Frederique 6. Libby in TN 7. Mary-kay 8. di

9. Angie in SoCal 10. DawnyK 11. Amanda 12. Christina's Handicrafts

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Weekend Stitching: Just Bits and Pieces

I'd really like a do over for last week, in just about every possible way. Upsetting things going on at work last week involving some long time and well liked co-workers.  The Scientist in Training received some very unexpected and significantly bad news over the weekend concerning her job. Plus the respiratory crud I caught on my business trip was still making me pretty miserable.  Thankfully I felt much better yesterday and was able to sleep without a dose of Benadryl before bed last night.  Hopefully that means the crud is fading fast. That should make it easier to cope with the ramifications of last week as we navigate this week.  

Consequently there wasn't a lot of stitching going on last week.  I was hoping to finish off the Christmas Mystery quilt, but didn't quite finish stitching down the binding.  That should happen this week. 

The only other visible progress was on the Storm at Sea project. 

A few more of the blue diamond blocks were added to the design wall.  The pattern is starting to show up much better with those additions.  I'm hoping to make a start on the purple blocks this week, as well as make some more progress on the dark blue diamonds.  

The one bright spot this week was the beautiful weather.  We took a stroll in one of the local botanical gardens with the cameras.  It's definitely spring. 

I loved the blue flowers. The moths were also out and about enjoying the floral bounty. 

I've got more floral pretties, but it's time for work so that's it for me this week.  Linking up with the typical Monday show and tells.  

Monday Design Wall
Monday Making

Week 16 of 2019: Stitching and Destashing

Happy Easter Sunday.  We typically spend the holiday with My Guys family, but the Scientist in Training has too much school work (she's down to just two weeks left before finals) for her to get away, so we are spending the day with her.  I'll work in a bit of stitching time this afternoon, though it may just be 15 minutes. 

Unfortunately, the respiratory crud that I caught on my business trip is still hanging on, so a couple of days this week, I was in bed pretty early and missed out on my stitching time. 

15 minute days/week = 5/7 days

15 minute days/April = 12/20 days

15 minute days/2019 = 98/110 days

Success rate = 89.09%

So I'm a bit short of my goal to stitch at least 90% of the time.  Hopefully I've turned the corner on this sinus infection and will do better on finding time to stitch this week.  I knew April was going to be challenging with so much on the calendar, being sick didn't help. 

How did your stitchy week go?  

1. Julie in GA 2. Marti 3. Chrisknits

4. Mary-kay 5. Amanda 6. Angie in SoCal

7. DawnyK 8. Christina's Handicrafts

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