Stitching Time: Week 5 of 2021

The last day of January is going to be cold and really windy, perfect stitching weather.  The weather this last month has been really conductive to spending time in the sewing room.  That's definitely helped get me back on track in terms of working in some stitching time most days.  How about you?  Are you finding more or less time to stitch in 2021?  

Work was cooperative this week and we didn't have to work very late any evening, plus we took our monthly day off on Friday.  It was a good week on the stitching time front. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Jan = 28/30 days
• 15 minute days/2021 = 28/30 days
• Success rate = 93.33%

I've only missed two days of stitching time this year, so I'm off to a good start on that front. You can link up and share how your first month of 2021 is going at the bottom of the post. 

With all the nasty weather this month, I've had a few sewing sessions that lasted most of the afternoon/evening.  It's been nice finding the time to sew, but I paid for those sessions with a sore shoulder and aching back the next morning.  I had similar problems back in 2018, so replaced my student desk with an adjustable sewing table. That helped a lot. So why are the problems back again?  I've been using an old office chair for the past 15 years. It won't adjust anymore and that was causing me to hunch over the sewing table.  So it was probably time to replace it.  The replacement came Thursday. 

It took a day to get the height right. But I was able to sew all afternoon yesterday without a back ache.  Definitely a good decision.  I'm hoping for another full afternoon of pain free stitching today.   

So how did your stitching go this week? 

 

1. Chriskntis 2. Julie in GA 3. martha mumaw 4. maggie f 5. Chris in Canada 6. Ivani

7. Meloney 8. Quilting Gail 9. DI 10. DesertSky Quilting 11. DawnyK 12. Jennifer in Indy

13. dreamworthy quilts 14. Shasta @ High Road 15. Amanda 16. Marti 17. Carol Andrews

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To Do Tuesday for 01/26/2021

The weather has been mostly dreary and cold the last week, which makes it easy to get into the sewing room. More time in the sewing room usually translates to a lot of check marks on the to do list. 

Weekly To Do List for 01/19/2021

• Red, White and Blue Stars: Package and mail ✔
• Grassy Creek: Continue to make blocks and sashing ✔
• Morewood Mystery: Continue making Block A ✔
• Unity: Make HSTs for clue 6 as leader and ender ✔

Four for four is definitely a good week. Even better it's easy to see the progress when I look at the design walls.  Other than the RWB Stars, the other projects aren't anywhere close to a finish, so this week's list is going to look a lot like last week's list.  

Weekly To Do List for 01/26/2021

Morewood Mystery: Finish making Block A

Morewood Mystery by Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs

This is the last week of January.  The next clue will come out on February 4th. So stitching the remaining 9 blocks will catch me up so I'm ready to go on the February clue. 

Grassy Creek: Continue making blocks, sashing

Grassy Greek, the 2020 Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt

There are enough bits and pieces finished to move the blocks and sashing to the big design wall.  Just one more set of 4 subunits to finish and I can concentrate on making the blocks and sashing pieces.  

Unity: Make HSTs as leader and enders project

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

Unity had to come off the design wall to make room for Grassy Creek, but I've left the blocks for the next round up on one side so I can keep count of how many are finished.  I've been making the HSTs as leaders and enders, but will sneak in stitching a full block once I have the 8 required.  I've been sewing a lot so the line of blocks has been growing a bit quicker now.  

My word for 2021 is "Focus", so I'm going to leave this week's to do list at just three items.  Based on what I learned last year, limiting the list to fewer projects does result in more finishes.  Besides, I'm really excited to see Grassy Creek come together, so it's really no hardship to limit the the list for now.  

Linking up with Home Sewn by Us for To Do Tuesday.  Good luck with your to do list for the week.  

Making Mysteries

It was cold and cloudy all weekend, perfect sewing room weather.  I took advantage of that and spent all of Saturday afternoon in the sewing room. Saturday morning I braved the biting cold (the wind made being outside absolutely miserable) and finished my January One Monthly Goal.   

The Red, White and Blue Stars quilt is all cleaned up, pressed, boxed and is now on it's way to Trudy for quilting.  My January OMG was to get this project prepped and mailed. Hopefully that means my first finish for 2021 will happen in February.  

Now that the RWB Stars is out of the sewing room for a few weeks, it was time to focus on something else.  Rather than pull out a UFO to focus on, it seemed prudent to focus on the three mysteries that were started last year.  I did pretty well at keeping up with Grassy Creek, the 2020 Bonnie Hunter mystery.  It's a typical Bonnie mystery with lots of pieces in each block. I've only got two blocks completed, with a third in progress. I have started finishing some of the sashing pieces as well.  

Grassy Greek, the 2020 Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt

I'm only making half the blocks. That should give me enough for a 3 x 4 layout.  I'm hoping to at least have all the blocks made by the end of February.  

Unity, Bonnie's coping with the pandemic mystery, is the current leaders and enders project. Since there was so much stitching this weekend, it moved along as well. 

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

The first border in the next round is more than half done at this point. Once Grassy Creek is assembled and out for quilting, Unity will be the next focus project. It's time to get it finished and off the big design wall.  

Linking up with Monday Making and Monday Design Wall.  

Stitching Time: Week 4 of 2021

In recent years, January has always seemed to pass so much slower than the other months of the year.  I wonder if that's because the last two months of the previous year there is lots of rushing around with holiday stuff and this month is so slow by comparison?  We've reached the 4th Sunday of January and still have one more full week before February begins. So if this week wasn't good on the stitching front, there is still one more left to work in some stitching time. 

Work was still a bit nuts this week.  I did have to work late one night, but was still able to fit in a bit of stitching time afterwards. It ended up being a pretty good week on that front.  

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Jan = 21/23 days
• 15 minute days/2021 = 21/23 days
• Success rate = 91.30%  

I'm back on track with my goal to stitch at least 85% of the days this year. 

How did your stitchy week work out?   

1. maggie f 2. Julie in GA 3. Marti 4. Chrisknits 5. karen 6. Ivani

7. Meloney 8. Chris in Canada 9. Rose in AL 10. Sherrie 11. DesertSky Quilting 12. Shasta @ High Road

13. martha mumaw 14. Quilting Gail 15. DawnyK 16. Andree at Quilting & Learning 17. Dq at Dreamworthyquilts 18. Amanda

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To Do Tuesday for 1/19/2021

It's been cold and windy in my part of the world.  Great stay in your sewing room weather. I'd prefer to do that, but I still have to work to support my fabric habit. Even with a few longer work days last week, the to do list didn't get neglected.  

Weekly To Do List for 1/12/2021

• Red, White & Blue Stars: Clean up and press quilt top ✔
• Grassy Creek: Continue to make subunits, blocks ✔
• Morewood Mystery: Continue making block A ✔
• Unity: Continue making HSTs for clue 6 ✔

Four for four, so definitely not a bad week.  I've decided to focus on finishing off Grassy Creek, so this week's to do list won't look much different.  

Weekly To Do List for 1/19/2021

Red, White and Blue Stars:  Package and mail.

Finding just the right size box is always hard. This one is a bit too long, but it will do.  I just need to add a bit more packing material, write out the address label and tape it up.  That's the easy part, finding time to drop it off at the post office is the trickier part.  

Grassy Creek:  Finish making subparts, make blocks

All that's left of the block subparts is these 5 square in rectangle units.  There are 8 pieces to each subpart, so they don't go together fast, but they aren't too bad.  Since I'm so far along with the subunits, it just seemed wise to keep up the momentum and get this project into a finished quilt top rather than pull out an older UFO to add to the mix. 

Morewood Mystery:  Continue making block A

Morewood Mystery by Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs

Since Grassy Creek has been taking up most of my stitching time, there's only one more Block A up on the design wall.  I have till the end of the month to finish constructing all of these.  These blocks should go faster once I've got all the subunits made for the other project.  

Unity: Continue making HSTs and blocks as leader and enders

I've got a good number of the pieces cut for the blocks, so this should be an easy leader and ender for quite a bit.  Once Grassy Creek is assembled, I think Unity will be the next focus project. I'd like to get it finished and off the design wall. The Morewood mystery wraps up in April. It would be nice to have all of last year's starts out for quilting by mid year. 

That's my list for this week. Linking up with Home Sewn by Us for To Do Tuesday.