To Do List for the Week of 06/03/2025

We were in Texas all last week to attend Grad Girl's thesis defense and then just hang out with her afterwards for a bit of a celebration. Poor girl hasn't had a real vacation in over a year.  The presentation of her work was public, so we were able to attend that. Afterwards we waited in the hallway while she took questions from her committee. 

It was a good week, other than the flat tire issues. We picked up a large bolt somewhere on Sunday/Monday. By Monday night we were running with the spare (thank goodness Grad Girl has a car).  After two visits to the tire shop and the locating of a second leak that wasn't patchable, we ended up having to replace the tire on Saturday.  We had to make a few compromises on activities, but only canceled one planned outing due to needing to be back in time to pick up the car on Saturday.  

We didn't get home till late last night.  Now I have unpacking and laundry to do.  But before I get to all of that, I need to decide what's on my to do list for the sewing room.  Last week's list was short and sweet (necessary with all the travel and thesis defense activities). 

To Do List for 05/27/2025

1.  Hand stitching: embroidery or counted cross stitch ✔ 

I'm hoping that my stitching mojo is back. The fact that mid-year is almost here may have a lot to do with me feeling like I need to get back to the sewing room.  I'm going to be ambitious with this week's list. If I don't check off every item that's OK.  If there is progress on the first three, it will have been a good week.  

To Do List for 06/03/2025

1.  2025 Guild BOM: Finish cutting fabrics for the blocks

The neutral background is cut for the inverted star. The colored pieces for that and all the pieces for the sawtooth stars need to be cut.  If I can start assembly that would be great.  

2.  Glowing Hearts (MMM Quilts): Finish assembling quilt top

The first two rows are sashed, assembled and sewn together. Assembly of the third row was started.  I should be able to get this to finished quilt top pretty quickly. 

3.  Kate's Choice: Continue quilting blocks

There's been no progress on this project for several weeks.  I'd like to have a finished quilt by the end of the month.  That may be a bit ambitious, but no reason not to pursue that goal.  

4.  Betty (Meadow Mist Designs): Find backing, figure out assembly

This is my Chookshed Challenge project for June. The quilt top was finished last year and needs to be quilted. I'm hoping to actually get the backing made sometime this month, but figuring out the fabric and the assembly part will set me up for that later this month.  I really need to concentrate on finishing a few quilts if I'm going to meet my goals this year.  

5.  Old Town (Bonnie Hunter): Assemble blocks at late night sew

Another project I've not worked on for a few weeks. I need to figure out where I'm at with it.  I know all the blocks pieces are cut, just need to get all the subunits made.  

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

Both my embroidery and cross stitch projects have been just travel projects.  If I'm going to make progress, they need to be worked on more frequently.  

7.  Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Finish green, sash orange blocks

All the orange blocks are finished, but they need to be sashed with black to make 7.5" blocks.  I've already sashed all the yellow blocks. I'm trying to decide if I assemble this as a medallion quilt, start with the center and add each color as borders.  That might be easier then making it in rows.  I still have time to work that out.  I'll still work making a few 3.5" red blocks this month. I only need a few more to have all the red ones needed for the design. This project won't get finished this year, but I'm hopeful it will be ready for assembly next year.   

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

The plan is to assemble the center and start on the borders. I don't want to make any more 4 patches until I see if I need more yellow or blue. I'm close to my estimated counts.  I'm hopeful this will be a completed quilt top by the end of the year. 

It's a long list, but most of the items are just to make progress. I think I can do that this week.  Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.  

Just 28 Days to Mid-Year!

About mid-morning yesterday I realized it was June 1st.  Along with that came the realization that we'll be half way through the year at the end of the month. I'm hoping that fact jump starts my sewing mojo, because I'm not doing so hot on my goals for 2025. 

I don't have much to show for this week.  My goal was to reacquaint myself with counted cross stitching.  I made a mistake pretty quick on my relearning process and had to unpick a lot of stitches.  But eventually a bit of progress was made.    

I'm going to try to work on this once a week to keep it moving.  Linking up with Slow Stitching Sunday over at Kathy's Quilts. 

My Chookshed Challenge for May was to find the backing fabric for Chilhowie.  

I found this yardage lingering in the quilt closet, left over from a quilt started in 2010, finished in 2015. As part of my older stash, it will be nice to use it up and get it out of the stash. The teal and orange echoes the colors in the quilt top, so it should be a fun backing. If I remember correctly, I have blocks that I didn't use in the border that can make this piece stretch if needed. 

Hopefully I'll be more motivated this week. A long to do list would probably backfire, so I need to think strategically.  

Also linking up with Monday Design Wall and Patchwork & Quilts this week.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 22 of 2025

 

My plan to concentrate on mostly hand work paid off this week.  I was a bit more motivated to get in my 15 minutes each day. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/May = 29/31 days
• 15 minute days/2025 = 144/151 days
• Success rate = 95.36%

All of my stitching this week has hand work. I've had to relearn how to do counted cross stitch.  It's been decades since I've tried my hand at that. I ended up making a big counting error and had to rip out a lot of stitches.  A stronger pair of cheater glasses helped and I'm back on track (at least I think I am).  There's not a bunch of progress after all the ripping, definitely nothing to post about yet.  

Sewing room mojo seems to be on the slide for several of my blogging buddies. How is yours doing?  

1. Gretchen 2. maggie f 3. Julie in GA 4. Melissa G

5. DonnaleeQ 6. Karen 7. Quilting Gail 8. Frédérique

9. Bonnie in Va 10. Deb in Canada 11. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting

Powered by... Mister Linky's Magical Widgets.

Week 141 Photo Challenge: Garden

It's been 3 weeks since our last challenge post. It's been a busy few weeks for Grad Girl. She finished her thesis and defended it this last week.  She passed her defense and has earned her master's degree. She still has a few edits to make on the thesis before it gets turned in and has some paperwork to file. Another week and she'll have all of that completed.  She's been job hunting a bit here and there, that will become her full time job now. 

All that to say, it took her a bit to find time to take a challenge photo.  The last challenge card wasn't hard, but Grad Girl just didn't have the mental bandwidth even for something simple. 

With all the rain in Oklahoma and Texas, most gardens are looking pretty good (well except for areas like Austin, TX that recently experienced massive hail storms). It's been a really good year for wild flowers.  

Kate: Blanket Flower Garden

 

It's not hard to find fields of Blanket Flowers right now. The Black Eyed Susans in the upper right are pretty common too.  

My Guy found a similar wildflower garden. 

My Guy: Accidental Garden of Feral Poppies

These pretty poppies were found near the local landfill on one of My Guy's bike rides.  Definitely very eye catching. 

Grad Girl had been in stressed out prep mode for most of the month, she's only had a couple of days to recover as yet.  So she improvised on a photo this week. 

Grad Girl: To Color a Garden

In what little down time she had before the defense, she only had the mental capacity to color, so that was as close to a garden as she was able to get. Now that she's not a grad student anymore, I guess it's name for another name change.  She doesn't officially graduate till August, so I have a bit of time.  

This week was supposed to be easy, but to be fair it wasn't just Grad Girl that struggled to find a suitable subject for the challenge card. I haven't decided if the next challenge card is easy or not. 

 

The temperatures are definitely rising, so that may or may not make getting a good photo easy.  

To Do List for the Week of 5/27/2025

This is my second week of low sewing mojo.  Consequently, my to do list from last week is looking pretty anemic. 

To Do List for 05/20/2025

1.  2025 SAHRR: Finish binding ✔

2.  Glowing Hearts: Finish piecing blocks, start assembly ✔

3.  2025 Guild BOM: Cut fabrics for July blocks - progress

4.  Old Town: Work on blocks at late night sew - no progress

Now that I've typed out the list, it's not so bad.  Two check marks and progress on the #3 of 4 items really isn't a bad week. Even so, I'm going to try a different tack this week. 

To Do List for 05/27/2025

1.  Hand stitching: work on counted cross stitch and/or embroidery projects.   

During my recent sewing room reorg, I found an old unfinished counted cross stitch project.  The Dale Burnett project book that goes with this was copyrighted in 1982. I did a lot of counted cross stitch during my high school and college years. That would put the start date for this project sometime between 1982 and 1985. It's been a long while since this project has gotten any attention.  So in an effort to salvage some stitching mojo, I'm going to try my hand at counted cross stitch again.

I have no idea what the stitch count is for the background throw, but it's pretty small stitches.  My eyes just aren't as good as they used to be. I may work on this for a bit and then switch over to my butterfly embroidery project.  We'll see if I make any progress on either project this week.

I'm going to keep it simple this week and see what happens. If I make it into the sewing room great, if I end up with 7 days of hand stitching, that works too. Linking up with To Do Tuesday over at the Quilt Schmilt.