To Do List for the Week of 08/06/2024

My Guy is off on a business trip, so I have the house to myself for a few days.  I lived alone for many years before we were married, but it feels so weird now.  A lot of stitching got done yesterday, but I have other chores to get done today.  But there will probably be some later night stitching again tonight.  

Having more stitching time yesterday helped me finish off the last couple of items on last week's to do list. It was a long one. 

To Do List for 07/30/2024

1. Rhododendron: Prep quilt for quilting ✔

2. Kate's Choice: Make last two blocks ✔

3. Indigo Way: Make blocks for pieced border ✔

4. 2024 SAHRR: Make label, make binding, trim quilt ✔

5. Wild and Goosey: Finish teal blocks, start orange blocks✔

6. Diatom: Determine layout, start assembly ✔

7. Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt: Leaders and enders ✔

I didn't expect to check off all seven items. So definitely one of my more productive weeks.  

This week's list isn't quite as long, so hopefully I can do as well on it.  

To Do List for 08/06/2024

1.  Rhododendron (Bonnie Hunter): Finish packing and send out for quilting. 

The backing and the quilt top are pressed and de-threaded. I found a box that works. I just need to make a label and take it to the post office.  That should happen today. 

2.  2024 SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Finish the binding

The binding is sewn to the front. All that's left is the hand stitching it to the back.  It's not a large quilt, so I should be able to finish that this week. I'm really excited to finish this one, so is Grad Girl.   

3.  Indigo Way (Bonnie Hunter): Continue to work on borders.

Two of the pieced borders are finished. The third is mostly assembled at the sewing machine. I need to take a few measurements before I cut the light blue spacer pieces for the last two pieced borders.  Indigo Way should be a finished quilt top before the end of the month.  

4. Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Continue making orange blocks.

Orange is one of the minor colors in the quilt, so it would probably be wise to count how many are done so I don't make more than needed.  I'm probably not that close, but I should check.  

5. Diatom (Quilting Jetgirl): Finish sashing, start borders

The top row is sewn together and the sashing strips have been added to the second row.  Finishing up the sashing should be very doable this week.  

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

I had to dig out a few of my yellow fat quarters, but I cut enough squares to make a few 2 patches. Next step is to sew these into 4 patches.  

So this week's list isn't much shorter than last week's list, but some of the to do's are a bit easier than last week's.  Even if I don't check off all of them, it will have been a good week if I get most of them.  

Linking up with The Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday. 

Project Milestones

The weekend was way too short.  I'm retired, but My Guy isn't. We seem to run out of Sunday before we run out of things we planned to do together. The big one this weekend was to get vacation planned.  Oh well, I'll work on it this week and we'll finish it off next weekend. 

One sewing room chore I tackled this weekend was getting Rhododendron (Bonnie Hunter) prepped for quilting. 

 

There are lots of seams to press. Thankfully there weren't too many loose threads. 

So now it's all pressed, de-threaded and ready to package to ship out to Trudy. 

So one more bar got longer on my quilt plan graph.  

The other project reaching a major milestone was Kate's Choice. 

The last block was finished on Saturday. So that's another bar that's longer on my quilt plan graph.  I'll play with the block layout when I'm ready to start quilting the blocks. First I need to practice quilting a bit before I start on that.  

No finish yet for August, but the binding and label are ready for the 2024 SAHRR.  So there should be a finish to post about next Monday. 

Linking up with the Monday Design Wall and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 31 of 2024

It's been hot with a few days this week also being insanely humid.  The heat alerts have been pretty consistent for the last week or so. The only safe thing to do in the afternoon is sew, so that's pretty much what I've done.  

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/July = 31/31 days
• 15 minute days/Aug = 3/3 days
• 15 minute days/2024 = 216/216 days
• Success rate = 100%

All the sewing room time has meant the space is more organized then it's been in years. Plus there's been lots of progress on projects.  Maybe not as many finishes as I'd like, but fingers crossed those are coming too.  

I raided the big scrap bag #2 for blue scraps for the SSSS quilt, so that just puffed up the contents of the bag.  It's hard to tell that I've processed any scraps from it.  The big achievement for the week was emptying the to be pressed bin again.   

The bin was refilled for the third time on June 9th. So it took a little less than a month to do all that pressing. Now that it is empty again, it's time for refill #4. 

I'm still repressing and refolding fabrics that were piled on top of the wire rack in the fabric closet.  I didn't realize how much was actually up there!  Definitely still a lot of pressing and folding left to do.  

How did your stitching, reorg, or decluttering efforts go this week? 

1. Julie in GA 2. maggie f 3. Karen 4. Jennifer in Indy

5. Dq at Dreamworthyquilts 6. Quilting Gail 7. Deb in Canada 8. Bonnie in Va

9. Bonnie in Va 10. Frédérique 11. Andrée at Quilting & Learning

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Week 118 Photo Challenge: Funny

We were all scratching our heads about what to photograph for this week's challenge. 

 

Funny is very subjective, so very dependent on the individual's perspectives and experiences. I find all the photos humorous, you might not. Even among the three of us there was disagreement as to which photos were the funniest.  What's included in this post was the photographer's choice.  

I completely blanked on this challenge.  None of my ideas really panned out.  This was the best of my not so wonderful ideas. 

Kate: Boobby Traps? 

I may have the largest collection of booby cards in the world.  Why? My sister for some reason decided that was a wonderfully funny subject for many of my birthday cards. My physique could in no way be considered busty, in fact pretty much the exact opposite. So maybe that's the point?

My Guy created a couple of photos, but the one he found on a bicycle ride was just perfect. 

My Guy: Happy Days Duo

He found this joy riding dude along a very rural country road. Best I can tell from Google Images the car is an early 1950's Buick. It definitely made me smile.  

I have no idea where Grad Girl found her image. 

 

Grad Girl: The Elements of Humor

   

Not how I was taught the elements, but this might be really effective for freshmen chemistry classes.  My favorite has to be the Krypton.  I looked up the company and these are magnets you can get by ordering from the company.  That's definitely fun. 

Hopefully at least one of the photos this week tickled your funny bone. Next week's challenge should be easier.  

    

No required subject, just that it has to fill the frame.  Should be interesting to see what we all come up with next week. 

July 2024 PHD Report

July wasn't nearly as busy as June, so there was a lot more time for playing in the sewing room.  Enough playing that there is finally an update to the PHD report. 

Just two finishes so far this year, but I'm doing better than last year when my first finish wasn't till September and the second finish wasn't till November.  

The finish for July was the 2023 Stay at Home Round Robin (Quilting Gail).  

I'm really happy with how this one turned out.  My Guy really likes it. That's a good thing because it's his new TV recliner quilt. He won't need it for a few months, but he'll enjoy it once the fall chill settles in sometime in October.  

A finish is always nice, but it takes good progress on the project list to move things in that direction. There was plenty of movement in the current active list. 

The oldest project on my works in progress list is Kate's Choice (previously known as Grandmother's Choice).  

Just two blocks needed to finish the 5 by 6 layout.  I had some thought of doing an inner ring with the lighter blocks. The layout needs a lot of work, but no point in getting serious about that till the last two blocks are finished.  Both are in process, I just didn't quite get the far before the end of the month.  

The teal blocks filled in a lot of holes in the top quarter of Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter).

The upper left quarter of the quilt is filled out, now to make some progress on the upper right quarter.  I'm going to need to be careful with the placement of the darkest blue and purple blocks.  But so far I'm happy with how this project is coming together. 

A new project got added to my works in progress list, The Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt (Kevin the Quilter).

The SSSS quilt is the new leaders and enders project.  The mystery started in July of 2019, but I only worked on it for a month.  I've got 50 yellow 4 patches and 90 blue 4 patches.  I need almost 200 of each colorway for the final layout.  I wanted a project that would help empty out some of my scrap bins. Pulling out all the blue 2.5 strips made a big different in that bin. I don't use yellow a lot so not so many strips of it, but I have lots of yellow fat quarters to use for those strips. This will make a good leaders and enders project.  

The completed Rhododendron Mystery quilt top (Bonnie Hunter) has been hanging in the closet since April waiting for it's turn to be finished up.  

The back is pieced and prepped for quilting. The plan is to prep the Rhododendron quilt top this weekend and get it out to the quilter sometime next week. This will likely be my finished project for September.

Grad Girl requested a wedding quilt for a very good grad school friend. They met in undergrad at OSU and are craft buddies (at least they were before both got insanely busy with grad school).  After offering Grad Girl several options off my UFO list, she settled on Diatom (Quilting Jetgirl). 

The blocks were finished just over a year ago.  Diatom is on my quilt plan for this year, but I just hadn't gotten that far. I played around in EQ and decided to add sashing and borders to this project to increase the size a bit so it would be a better couple cuddle quilt.  I got as far as cutting the sashing strips, but that's it. The plan is to get this quilt assembled, a backing made and send it out for quilting in September in hopes Grad Girl will have it by Thanksgiving. We'll see if that works or not.  

Indigo Way (Bonnie Hunter) has moved from being the leaders and enders project to having the blocks sewn together.  

As is typical, I'm not doing the borders the same as Bonnie's version. I had to make 8 more of the triangle in the square blocks plus four corner stones before I could start on the pieced border.  Indigo Way should be a pieced quilt top by the end of the month.  It may not get quilted this year, but I'll be happy just to have the quilt top finished before this year's mystery gets going.  

The 2024 SAHRR (Quilting Gail) came back from the quilter late last month. 

Trudy did a beautiful job with the quilting.  I've got the label designed, but not printed. The label is going to be a surprise, so I won't be posting about that till after Grad Girl has the quilt. I still need to make the binding. The plan is to get going on both those things this weekend.  This will be my August finish.  

I  finally got caught up with the Guild BOM.    

I'm not thrilled with the darker gray that I used for these blocks, but I'm too far along to fix it.  Hopefully it will look OK once all the blocks are made.  

All the progress this month shows up in the bar graph as a bit more color. 

Every category has a bit of progress over this last month. A new category was added to include the SSSS quilt that wasn't part of my original quilt plan for this year.  I expect one more finished quilt and at least two finished tops for August.  So look for longer bars in at least some of the categories next month. 

Linking up with P Designs USA for the July PHD Report.