Definitely Progress, But Nothing Exciting

There really was a plan to post last week, but I'd forgotten how hard it is when you have an early morning start and have to find coffee and breakfast before your first session.  Meetings all day and then social networking meetings in the evenings, left me pretty much spent at the end of the day. I don't do this type of stuff very often now that I'm not working.  It was fun though, I miss the technical part of being a research chemist and I definitely got to do some technical stuff during the meeting.  

The meeting did take me out of the sewing room for the better part of the week. But between a bit of weekend sewing and what I got done before I left, there is a bit of progress to post about.  

The row 4 blocks for Kate's Choice were all quilted just before I left for the conference. So just two more rows left to quilt.  

Clue 7 for Old Town (Bonnie Hunter) was also finished. 

Clue 8 is in progress.  It's more flying geese. I'm almost half way done with those.  I'm hoping to be able to start assembling blocks in July.  

So there's been progress, just nothing as exciting as a finished quilt top or finished quilt.  Linking up with Monday Design Wall and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 26 of 2025

 

I didn't mean to be absent from the blog this week.  We both attended a technical conference last week and our mornings were early and our evenings late. It was just hard to find the time to write a blog post.  I also didn't do so hot on finding time to stitch during the later half of the week, it was just too hectic and we both were pretty much wiped out when we got back to the room.  So this weeks stitching stats don't look so hot.  

• 15 minute days/week = 4/7 days
• 15 minute days/June = 25/28 days
• 15 minute days/2025 = 169/179
• Success rate = 94.41%

I'm hoping for a better week this week, though we have some family stuff coming next weekend for the 4th of July holiday. Grad Girl is coming home for just a bit.  Saturday morning was spent unpacking and getting a start on laundry after our conference trip. It's going to be a busy week, but hopefully I can still fit in some good stitching time. 

How was your week in the sewing room?  

1. Gretchen 2. Frédérique 3. maggie f 4. maggie f 5. Julie in GA

6. Melissa G 7. Karen 8. DonnaleeQ 9. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting 10. Quilting Gail

11. Bonnie in Va 12. Andrée 13. Carol @Quilt Schmilt

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Stitching Stuff: Week 25 of 2025

 

It's been quite week on the storm front thankfully. Summer has kicked in. Hot and humid are the words of the week.  Looks like we are in for  a lot of that over the next few weeks.  It's a good reason to hold up in the sewing room during those hot afternoons.  Which is pretty much what I did this week, it definitely helps with the sewing time. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/June = 21/21 days
• 15 minute days/2025 = 165/172 days
• Success rate = 95.93%

A good week on the stitching time front.  Not so good on the scrap processing or fabric closet organization.  The weekends have been a bit busy trying to get a few other things done around the house.  Hopefully I'll get back to that at some point this year. 

Were you able to make time to stitch last week?  

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

6. DonnaleeQ 7. Julie in GA 8. Quilting Gail 9. Bonnie in Va 10. Stitching Loving Nana

11. Andrée at Quilting & Learning 12. Marsha's Spots 13. Frédérique

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Week 144 Photo Challenge: Vegetable(s)

We started this photo challenge almost exactly 4 years ago.  The first post was on July 2, 2021.  We gave My Guy the first deck of photo challenge cards for Father's Day that year.  Some cards have taken longer than a week to finish for a variety of reasons.   I took a several month hiatus from the blog in 2022.   The last year has been tougher as Grad Girl has been working hard to finish up her master's. She just didn't have the energy or time some weeks.  So there hasn't been a photo challenge post each week.  But we definitely aren't ready for the end but this week's photos are from the last card in the second deck. 

None of us had problems finding subject matter, the challenge this week is to make an interesting photo. My approach to that is typically to see what I can get with macro photography.

Kate: Red Pepper

Red peppers are one of my favorite raw veggies.  I can eat red, yellow and orange peppers with no problems. But green peppers tear up my stomach.  My favorite part of the photo is probably the texture in the stem.  

I went raw, My Guy went with a cooked veggie. 

My Guy: Pizza in Progress

This was Sunday dinner: caramelized onion with peach and prosciutto. We wanted something different on the pizza. It was supposed to be pear and fig pizza, but pears were out of season and figs are hard to find at our local small town grocery store. So he winged it. It was still really, really good.  

Grad Girl finished all the paperwork needed to get her thesis submitted and applied for graduation on Friday. It was a stressful week for the poor girl, turns out there's a whole approval process that had to occur, it wasn't as simple as just submitting the thesis to the website.  With all of her committee out of the country, that got tricky with the Friday deadline. She pulled it off, but not without losing a bit of sleep and sanity. But she still came up with a photo when I asked. 

Grad Girl: Grad School Garden

Like her Dad, Grad Girl likes to have fresh herbs.  With all the things she needed to do to get out this summer, her garden hasn't been thriving.  Hopefully, she'll have a bit more time over the next few weeks to nurse her basil back to health.  

So that's the last photo card from the second deck.  We've been discussing what to do going forward as none of us what to end the challenge. It's been a very nice way to do something as a family, even with Grad Girl so far away.  As luck would have it, Amazon came through and I found another deck of photo cards from a completely different company.  There are 100 cards in this deck. That's almost 2 more years of photo challenges.  Here's the first one: 

Hmm, it will be interesting to see what we all come up with. 

If you are interested in this photo card deck, here's the full info.  

100 Photography Ideas Cards from Tip Info.  You can find them at Amazon (no affiliation, just sharing if you are interested in doing something similar). 

To Do List for the Week of 06/17/2025

Do you ever look at your calendar and realize that you don't really have that much time to get ready for something?  Grad Girl will be moving home next month.  She's been applying for jobs and has had one video interview so far.  With the current job market, she's probably going to be here for at least a month, likely 2 to 3 before she finds a full time chemist job.  I've been using her old closet as storage for some of my quilting supplies, I'm going to have to find someplace else because she's going to need the closet.  I have time, but will need to add that to my decluttering to do list.  

Maybe it goes on my quilting to do list too?  It certainly wasn't on last week's to do list.  

To Do List for 06/10/2025

1.  2025 Guild BOM: finish cutting, finish assembly - progress

2.  Kate's Choice: Continue quilting blocks - no progress

3.  Old Town: Work on blocks at late night sew ✔

4.  Embroidery or Cross Stitch: Stitch one night this week ✔

5.  Wild and Goosey: Finish red blocks - progress

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

It wasn't a bad week, three check marks, two with some progress and only one with no progress.  I'm finding it hard to get back to the quilting because I have deadlines with the Guild BOM blocks. My next deadline is in later July, so hopefully I'll have some time to quilt this week.  So it will stay on the to do list for this week. 

To Do List for 06/17/2025

1.  2025 Guild BOM: Finish July blocks, start cutting for Sept. 

It will take an hour or so to finish up the blocks for July. That's doable before tonight's meeting.  I'm going to try to get ahead on August. July will be busy.  

2.  Kate's Choice: Continue quilting blocks

The plan is to change over to the walking foot tomorrow and spend a couple of days quilting.  I'll just have to be disciplined and do it.  

3.  Embroidery or Cross Stitch: Stitch one night this week. 

I made a little progress Sunday night.  It's slow going, but to be fair that's only an hour of stitching time.  But progress is progress even if it's slow.  

4.  Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Finish piecing red blocks, start sashing red blocks

Just one last red block to finish paper piecing and I can start sashing the blocks with black.  Orange is this month's RSC color, but I finished all the work on those blocks.  So I'm continuing with a different color.  I'll be paper piecing a couple more green blocks this month too.  I'd really like to see this project be ready for assembly sometime next year. Hopefully, by doing a bit each month, I'll get there.  

5.  Old Town (Bonnie Hunter): Continue assembly during late night sew.

All the gold/neutral flying geese are made and I've moved on to making these subunits.  Hopefully assembly of the blocks will start in early July.  I've been working on this at late night sew because it's the only non-guild project I have everything cut for.  

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

Yesterday's blog showed the progress from last week.  The only change is that some of the yellow border blocks are sewn together.  It's been fun to see this start to come together.  It feels like I've been making all those 4-patches forever!  

It's the same list as last week, though I'm hoping to do a bit better on the quilting and the cross stitching this week. We'll have to see how that works out.  Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.