What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I'm currently in Texas, hanging out with My Girl and Queenie.  I spent most of last week getting ready to travel and not as much time in the sewing room. But I did reach one big milestone. The quilting of Chilhowie was completed and I made getting it bound a priority so I had a second finish to add to my tally before we cross into the later half of the year. 

Chilhowie was the 2022 Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilt.  I opted to make just 9 blocks, the quilt still turned out to be a good sized lap quilt ...

If you've followed me for any length of time you probably know I have a week spot for Cheryl Brickey's Meadow Mist Designs mystery quilts and Bonnie Hunter's annual mystery quilt alongs. I've been sewing with Bonnie's mysteries since 2013. That year was her Celtic Solstice mystery. It's still in pieces with a few blocks made. It's on my 2026 project list. Not sure I'm going to get that far. 

Sitting at my machine last night and pinning pieces for the next round of chain piecing, I realized that 4 out of 5 projects getting pinned were Bonnie Hunter projects.  Her mysteries are known for needing lots of piecing. I enjoy the piecing, but to be working on 4 at one time may not be the easiest way to move a few projects to finished. Especially when I am trying really hard to keep up with this year's mystery, Indigo Way. I've finished half of the clue 1 HSTs and have made a start on the clue 2 ...

It was a warm weekend here, but I didn't enjoy it much.  My allergies really didn't like the warm up. I'm hoping we get some of the forecast rains sooner rather than later to knock back the pollen. I didn't spend a lot of time in the sewing room this weekend, but enough to make a bit of progress on the UFO next in line for assembly.  

All the blocks for Bonnie Hunter's 2021 mystery quilt along (Rhododendron) were finally finished back in January of this year. They've been sitting in a project box ...

I'm struggling a bit to think clearly.  Benadryl does wonders for allergies, but it also creates a lot of brain fog.  I think the cats, Grad Girls and my mom's, finally got to me yesterday.  Actually it's probably mostly due to my mom's cat.  He decided to sleep next to my head Tuesday night. Grad Girl and I drove back down to my mother's on Tuesday because it would cut 2.5 hours off GG's trip back to college and I needed to pick up some things that wouldn't fit in the car ...

Today is the last day of our holiday vacation.  My Guy heads back to work tomorrow and Grad Girl starts the trip back to Texas tomorrow.  She'll go visit Grandma tomorrow afternoon, that will cut about two and half hours off the eight hour drive.  I'm going to be really sad the rest of this week. Thankfully there are some new quilt alongs starting up soon. Hopefully getting ready for those will help me adjust to being home alone again.  

There has been some stretches of stitching time this week between Christmas and New Years.  The big accomplishment ...

It was a stay at home and not do much kind of weekend. The wind was so cold, so it wasn't a hardship to just stay home.  I'm not looking forward to next weekend, the forecast is for really cold temperatures.  I know we won't be as cold as those of you to the north, but -7 F is cold no matter where you live!  

The sewing room has seen a fair amount of activity, but there's not really much to show. I've mostly been working on the Meadow Mist Designs and Bonny Hunter mysteries ...

December will be half over on Thursday.  I'm ready for a clean start in 2023, but am definitely not ready for the holiday that happens between now and then. I've written in previous posts that my holiday spirit seems to have gone into hiding this year. I'm still adjusting to the new normal I guess. Hopefully it will get a good boost when Grad Girl comes home next week. 

I've been keeping the weekly to do lists pretty simple. I'm just not that ambitious at the moment, my goal is to just keep making progress ...

As much as I enjoy the holiday season, I really don't like the cold and dreary weather, it's very deenergizing. I'm sure my energy levels would also be better if things would quit breaking.  The latest is a leak in the drain line from the tub in the second floor bathroom.  We've sent up an appointment with the plumber.  Not sure how much of the bathroom they are going to have to deconstruct to fix the leak, but it has to be done. I may have to relocate my sewing activities as my sewing room is ...

Just 31 days left in 2022.  I'm really not ready for that. On the other hand, this year hasn't been so great on a number of fronts, so I'm looking forward to the new year in hopes it's a lot better.  Since it is a new month, it's time to summarize my progress on earning my PHD and share over at Quilting Gail's.  It's not a stellar report, but there has been some progress on all the active projects.  

No new finishes, but one new start. The clues for both mystery quilts won ...

We had a fun Thanksgiving with Grad Girl.  We were amazingly busy while we were there. We spent one day in Houston hanging out at the Houston Museum of Natural History. One day was dedicated to Christmas shopping.  Even though I didn't have a lot of time for stitching I still managed to check off all the items on my to do list. 

It's been one of those weeks.  I fully intended to post my To Do Tuesday yesterday, but those plans were interrupted by either food poisoning or a stomach bug.  I went from wanting to puke my guts up to just feeling 100% crappy. It's Wednesday afternoon and I'm finally feeling almost normal again.  Thankfully My Guy and Grad Girl carried on with Thanksgiving prep without me, so that should go off as planned tomorrow.  

It was a quiet weekend. Which is nice as this week will be busy with plans and prep for the Thanksgiving holiday.  As I was sorting through what to post for the Monday Design Wall and Patchwork and Quilts linky parties, I realized that my sewing room efforts the last few months have been dedicated to finishing up old mysteries or starting new mysteries.  A couple of weeks ago, the 2021 Meadow Mist Designs mystery quilt became a finished quilt top.  I thought I was going to need to buy backing fabric, but I found something in the stash that ...

We are halfway through November. The weather has turned cold, so you'd think I'd be able to wrap my head around the fact that Thanksgiving is next week and December starts the week after that.  I'm definitely not ready to contemplate Christmas, so I'm going to avoid and think about stitching stuff like last week's To Do List. 

To Do List for Week of 11/8/2022 

1. Unity: Prep backing for quilting ✔

2. Macaron Mystery: Find backing fabric ✔

3. Melodic Mystery: Work on clues 2 and 3 ✔

4. Rhododendron Mystery: Work on blocks as ...

 I've not written a PHD post in four months because there really wasn't anything to post about.  There was pretty much no stitching from June till the end of August. Over the last month or so, I've finished a couple of new projects and made a bit of progress on my 2022 UFO list.  My report is not stellar, but it could certainly be worse. 

I finished two of three new starts. That's probably my biggest achievement from the last few months.  

Grad Girl asked me to make pillows from two of her embroidery projects. 

Stitching time was a bit limited last week, but luckily the To Do List was pretty easy. 

It was a very nice weekend at home.  My sanity benefitted greatly from not leave the house the entire weekend. Being a hermit for a bit felt so nice. We've been on the move most of the summer and early fall with family stuff and special events. The holidays are coming up, so things are going to stay busy, but hopefully we won't be going as much on the weekends till we hit Thanksgiving.  

Being off work is really conductive to finding time to sew.  I checked off every item on my to do list for the week. 

To Do List for 11/23/2021

• Cabins and Fans: Prep for quilting, pack for shipping ✔
• Macaron Mystery: Make flying geese for steps 4 and 5 ✔
• Rhododendron Mystery: Start step 1 ✔
• Unity: Make flying geese for step 8 ✔

To Do List for 11/30/2021

Cabins and Fans: Mail out for ...

Last week was pretty much a bust for anything sewing room related. This week didn't get off to the best start.  We were saying good bye to family and on the road for a good part of Monday.  Odds and ends kept me out of the sewing room till late evening yesterday.  As you can probably guess, I didn't make a lot of progress on last week's To Do List. 

To Do List for 11/16/2021

• Cabins and Fans: Finish quilt prep - progress
• Macaron Mystery: Make more flying geese - no progress
• Unity: Make more flying geese ...

Hard to believe it's already July 2021.  The last two months have passed really fast for me. My work-life balance was pretty much non-existent during that time.  Thankfully, things have improved and I have hopes of making more progress this month.  So hopefully next month's PHD report will look a lot better than this one.  

 I squeezed in one more finish at the end of June.