To Do List for the Week of 11/5/2024

It's been nice to be home for a stretch.  I was able to get some chores done last week that really needed to get done.  It's easier to wander off to the sewing room if the house is at least reasonably in order.  The sewing room time has been paying off, there was good progress on last week's to do list. 

To Do List for 10/29/2024

1. String Lights: Package and mail out for quilting ✔

2. Chocolate Marshmallows: Continue assembly ✔

3. Wild and Goosey: Continue making blocks ✔

4. Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt: Continue as leaders/enders ✔

Last week's list was pretty simple. Simple seems to be working for me, so this week's list will be just about the same.   

To Do List for 11/05/2024

1.  Chocolate Marshmallows (Seabreeze Quilts): Work on borders

I like nested borders and this quilt will have 4 total.  The first one is done and the second is started.  Hopefully I can finish all of them this week or at least get close.  

2. Squared Away (So Scrappy): Start sashing blocks

It was hard to come up with a layout for all the blocks.  I played with the blocks over the weekend and finally ended up on the phone with Grad Girl for some brainstorming.  I think this is pretty close to a final setting. I might move a block or too before I get serious about adding the sashing.  This is another quilt where I didn't really give any thought about how all the blocks would go together.  It's scrappy, anything works. Right? 

3. Guild BOM: Start pieced borders

The quilt has a flying geese borders on the top and bottom.  That means something like 28 flying geese.  That may take a couple of weeks.  

4.  Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Continue to work on red blocks

More triangles were cut from the scrap bins.  I don't have a very large variety of reds, hopefully there is enough so not all the blocks look the same.  

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

I need 200 plus blue 4-patches and more than 100 yellow 4-patches for my version of this quilt.  Lots more to make. It's slow going, but slow is still progress.

That's my list for the week. Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.   

A Bit of This and That

Have you adjusted to time change yet?  It's nice to have the sunlight in the morning, but it's not fun for it to be dark by the time My Guy gets home at night.  For some reason, it's harder for me to go back to the sewing room after dinner once the sun is down.  Not sure what is up with that, but that's been the case for a while.  I'll have to get myself going to the sewing room earlier in the afternoon for the next few months.    

Most of my focus this week has been getting Chocolate Marshmallows  (Seabreeze Quilts) assembled.  

I'm happy with how it's coming together and like the setting I chose.  The colors look muddy in the photograph, the pink is much brighter then shows in the photo. Now I'm on to adding the borders.  I should have one more finished quilt top added to the closet before the end of the month.

The other thing I did this weekend was some serious fabric closet diving to find fabrics for this year's Bonnie Hunter mystery, Old Town.  

My thought was to use light and dark teal as the red and coral.  But my stash didn't support that color choice. I decided to keep the teal print and pair that with light and dark brown that would work with off white odds and ends in the stash for a semi-scrappy background.  The browns looked muddy, but there was a red that was in the stash that worked well.  The gold fabric is new as I didn't have anything else in the stash that seemed to work.  This isn't a color palette I've used before and I'm excited to get started. Are you doing the Bonnie Hunter mystery this year?   

Linking with Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 44 of 2024

Is it really November?  October seemed to just speed by.  With the holidays coming up, I'm sure it will be January before any of us are ready.  Even so, I'm hoping to get a bit more done on my projects before the end of the year.   

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Oct = 31/31 days
• 15 minute days/Nov = 2/2 days
• 15 minute days/2024 = 307/307 days
• Success rate = 100%

Keeping my stitching streak going into November has been a lot of fun. I'm hoping I can manage to keep it up in November. Things get dicey in December.  Even so it's been such a good year on the making time to stitch front.  

Progress on the stash reorganization has been a bit here and there the last few months. I did manage to get a bit more fabric pressed and refolded.  

There are just 4 yardage pieces left to press in the bin.  I should be able to empty the bin next weekend and then refill it with whatever prewashed yardage remains from the top of the wire rack in the fabric closet.  The progress on the stash reorganization has been really good this year. Still lots to do, but there has been a lot of progress. 

So how are you doing as we start the next to last month of 2024?  Have you met your goals or have you just decided what's not done can just be added to your 2025 goals?  

 

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

5. DonnaleeQ 6. Jennifer in Indy 7. Quilting Gail 8. Andrée at Quilting & Learning

9. Bonnie in Va 10. Amanda 11. Carol @ Quilt Schmilt

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Week 127 Photo Challenge: Smoke

It's been 5 weeks since my last photo challenge post.  The main reason the challenge was on hiatus was Grad Girl's big exam that required a lot of effort to get ready for. Now That she's past that and a lot of our travel is done for a bit, we were all ready to get back to getting photos for the last challenge. 

This one was harder than we expected.  To be honest, I struggled the most.  I didn't get my photos till last night and it took some set up and patience.

Kate: Just Smoke

It took me several attempts at generating smoke before I found one that worked. But all the effort paid off, I ended up with several shots that were interesting.  This one was my favorite. 

My Guy captured this shot on his way out of town to photograph the comet.  

My Guy: Distant Fires

 

It's been incredibly dry here. We'd not had any rain for two to three months. We did finally get some rain on Wednesday and the forecast is for a rainy weekend.  It's definitely needed. There were grass fires one county over from us that required evacuations last Tuesday. I think the firefighters were able to prevent any homes from burning, but it was definitely scary for the residents.  

Grad Girl as usual found something from her experiments. 

Grad Girl: Toxic Orange Smoke

It may be a little hard to see, but there is a definite cloud of orange smoke (technically it's a vapor) in the flask.  This is red fuming nitric acid, which is very concentrated nitric acid and a very dangerous inhalation hazard. It's one the reagents Grad Girl uses in her lab work.  If you were to buy a bottle of nitric acid for general lab use, the concentration of that nitric acid is about 68% (the rest is water). Red fuming nitric acid is 86% nitric acid. Definitely a liquid that has to be handled in a well functioning fume hood.  

My Guy and I thought this challenge was hard. He pulled the card for this week's challenge.  It's harder. 

    

I actually have an idea. We'll have to see how that pans out. Should be another interesting week of photos.  

Happy Halloween