What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

It's not been the best week. What I thought was a pinched nerve, isn't.  The doctor isn't sure what's wrong, but it's gone from bad to worse.  I wasn't able to walk at all Friday. Mobility improved throughout the day on Saturday.  So I worked on some embroidery stitching both days as I couldn't navigate the steps up to my sewing room.  With that I was able to maintain my stitching time for the week.  

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/February  = 24/24 days
• 15 minute days/2024 ...

We are already a couple of days into 2024, so it's definitely time to review my progress on my PHD projects this year and link one more time with Quilting Gail's PHD in 2023.  It definitely wasn't one of my more successful years in terms of finishes and my report shows that. 

I was able to add one more finish before the year ended.  That brings my total for the year to 3.  Not stellar, but it's one more than I finished last year.  I'll take an incremental increase. I finished three of the small ...

Hard to believe it's December.  Just one month left to reach all those goals we crafted so carefully last December. One of my goals was to play along with Quilting Gail's PHD in 2023 and do better than I did in 2022.  I'm linking up to the November PHD Update with a report that looks better then last month's. 

  

I finished a second quilt in November, which puts my PHD performance on par with last year's in terms of overall finishes.  In addition to the finish, there was good progress on several other projects. 

For those in the US, I hope you had a wonderful holiday and that everyone else had a wonderful weekend.  We ate a lot last week.  Both Grad Girl and My Guy are incredible cooks. I did my part with chocolate pie, pistachio salad and brownies, all family favorites. I really need to get with my exercise program over the next few weeks so I can endure a repeat round of feasting at Christmas.  

I did get some time in the sewing room before leaving it for holiday prep and hanging out time with Grad Girl.  But I don't ...

I'm really not ready for it to be Thanksgiving.  But now it's just a few days away.  Maybe that's what motivated me this week, I definitely made a dent in my rather long to do list. 

To Do List for the Week of 11/14/2023

1. Malted Mystery: Finish clue 4, start clue 5 ✔

2. Scrappy Butterflies: Prep fabrics, design back, cut back ✔

3. Rhododendron: Finish sewing sashing and blocks, start borders ✔

4.  Wild and Goosey: Make 2 orange blocks ✔

5.  Chilhowie : Leaders and enders project ✔

6.  Fabric organization: Cut/sort scraps, press yardage ✔

Very surprised ...

With the holiday and family plans, I didn't get much done on my To Do List from 6/27, so I skipped writing a post last week.  Even with the extra week, I didn't get everything checked off.  

To Do List for 6/27/2023

1. Just Two Charm Pack Quilts blog hop: Finish assembling rows, start assembling quilt top ✔

2. Diatom: Finish block 9, cut block 10 - progress

3. Wild & Goosey: Make 2 blue or green blocks ✔

4. Chilhowie: Leaders and enders project ✔

So there is progress even though not everything got checked off.  

I'm heading ...

My Guy and I did our last shopping expedition for stocking stuffers yesterday.  We both need to finish wrapping gifts today.  My Guy has a full day of holiday baking planned for today.  For me it's finishing off Christmas cards and laundry. Family holiday stuff starts off tomorrow as Grad Girl will be home. So it will be a busy count down to the holiday.  Even with all the holiday to dos this week, I did well on checking off the items on last week's stitching to do list. 

To Do List for 12/13/22

1. Melodic ...

Most of this week was spent moving all the furniture out of the library and cleaning the carpet. It's been a while since I've cleaned carpets, so it really had to be cleaned twice.  I'd forgotten just how much work cleaning carpets was, it's a lot harder then I remember, or maybe I'm just older?  Either way, I was incredibly sore when I went to bed last night. I woke up this morning with a very sore knee that has only gotten worse today,  so I'm going to rest tomorrow in hopes that it ...

We are still navigating my recent retirement. In some ways it's been harder on My Guy then me.  My entire routine has changed, but his basic routine hasn't changed much. He goes to work at the same time, at the same place, has the same office, though his job has changed somewhat due to the restructuring.  But now I don't ride to work with him. I'm not just upstairs in my office if he wants to compare notes on a technical problem, wants coffee from my Keurig or is ready to go to lunch.  It's ...

October wasn't a great month for finding my way to the sewing room.  This year has been challenging on a number of fronts and that's not going to change anytime soon. Rather than be disappointed, I'm going to celebrate the progress on projects no matter how little it may be, because there's no point in beating myself up for what's beyond my control.  Any progress on my PHD in 2021 will make working towards a PHD in 2022 that much easier.     

There aren't any updates to my PHD report this month. 

No finishes, but ...

It's been a very nice week. We took off most of last week and took a trip to Eureka Springs, AR.  It's a touristy town, but a very laid back one.  We rented a little cottage not far from down town and pretty much just hung out. We walked a lot, ate a lot, read a lot, and I stitched a bit.  The cottage had a wonderful front porch.

It was well sheltered from the rain. Since it rained a lot, we did spend a lot of time out here or in the cottage.  I worked on my ...

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. 

Yesterday was cold and rainy, just really yucky.  Walking to the car after work was really miserable. I'm hoping spring is going to get  bolder and warm things up a bit more before unleashing torrents of rain. But that's not happening this morning, more rain on the way, though it won't last all day.  

We had a good holiday. How about you?  We did spend some time with family, but everyone was fully masked and socially distanced.  It was important to my mother that we all get together, even for a just a brief time over the holiday. 

Last week was the last full week in 2020, week 52.  Hard to believe that 2021 is only a few days away.  My last full week was reasonably good on the stitching front. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Dec = 20/26 days
• 15 minute days/2020 = 319/361 days
• Success rate ...

For some reason, last week just didn't go very well in the sewing room. Mainly because I didn't speed much time there.  What time spent with needle and thread was spent doing embroidery.  I did make some progress on that front.  

Unity, 2020 Bonnie Hunter Sew-In-Place Quilt Along

I head back to the office tomorrow after seven weeks of working from home.  It's going to be weird.  The last time I was out of the office for that long was when the Scientist in Training was born!  I've been working from home, so the biggest change will be in my view and my access to the refrigerator. (Being farther away is not a bad thing!) Getting in my 15 minutes of stitching time a day shouldn't change much at all.  How about you, are you going to struggle more with finding those 15 minutes to ...

It was a long week, working from home has its own challenges. Plus work was just really busy this week. That cut into my stitching time more than usual. How are you doing at fitting in at least 15 minutes of stitching time each day during this time of working from home and social distancing? 

It's been a busy week on the work front, but I got one big project finished. That felt really good.  Unfortunately my day off turned into just a half day off, but I still got to spend some extra time in the sewing room on Friday.  How hard was it for you to get in your 15 minutes of stitching time this week? 

How is it already mid-April?  We've been working from home for pretty much a month now. We've got a routine, but I'm not a fan of working from home.  You'd think there would be some time savings with no commute, but I find it's harder to end the day on time.  

So my stitching time hasn't increased.  Add in making a few face masks for family and friends means that time for project sewing has actually been lower this month. But there has been some progress with the PHD program.  

Binding and label are ...