What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

The drive from Houston to home Monday was just over 11 hours. Needless to say I was pretty wiped out yesterday. I slept late yesterday, got up just in time to go work out at the gym and make a run to Walmart.  After lunch, it was nap time.  I just never worked up the energy to dig my computer out of the bag and get it set up.  So I'm a day late with my to do list. 

My sewing mojo dipped a bit last week.  Not sure why, but it was just harder to get up to the sewing room.  It didn't help that I felt crappy last weekend.  It wasn't a horrible week, there was still good progress on the to do list, but a few things slipped through the cracks. 

To Do List for 9/8/2026

1. Glowing Hearts: Continue quilting ✔

2. 2026 Guild BOM: Cut fabrics needed for assembly - no progress

3. Celtic Solstice: Continue making blocks ✔

4. Marigold Mystery: Cut fabrics for September blocks ✔

5. Wild and Goosey: Finish teal ...

Labor Day has come and gone, it's supposed to be autumn.  Looks like we've got a few more triple digit days and then temps drop to the low to mid 90's.  Not my idea of autumn, but I'll take just anything lower at this point.  

The big thing that sticks in my mind for August is just how hot it was all month.  Normally we get those triple digit temps for a couple of weeks. It was pretty much the whole month, with just a few days of temps dipping into the 90's. It was a good month for sewing, it was too hot to do much else.  No finishes last month, but there was still enough progress to do an August PHD report to link up with Ms. P Designs.  

No finishes, but there was a new project started last month. It was ...

August seemed to go both fast and slow. The high temperatures did make the month drag a bit.  I'm ready for autumn temps, but I'm not ready for it to be September.  If this year is like past years, I'll blink and it will be December!  

This is the last to do list for August.  Next Tuesday we'll be starting September.  I'm hoping that means at least a cool down for us.  But it does feel like the end of the year goes faster than the first of the year does. It will be the holidays before I'm ready that's for sure. 

It's tempting to start another post off with the weather, it's been an exceptionally hot summer this year.  But I'll try to stop with that and move on to all the sewing that happened last week as a very happy consequence of not wanting to leave the house.  

Summer continues in full force here, so my air conditioned sewing room is my preferred place to hang out most days. Though I did concentrate more on getting chores done this last week. I'm behind there after my back and knee issues last spring. I still got lots done in the sewing room, just not as much as planned.  

July felt like a month of medical appointments.  Physical therapy twice a week and then several appointments to address the tooth pain that was keeping me up.  Even with all the disruptions, July was a pretty good month on the PHD front.  There is another finish to link up with Ms. P Designs for the July PHD report.  

This is my third finish for the year.  I had hoped to have more finishes by this point in the year.  Learning to quilt has been a slow process, but I'm getting better and a bit faster there.  Finding a long ...

We got a nice cool off for the weekend, but we are back to summer heat the rest of the week.  So the sewing room will continue to be my preferred afternoon hang out.  Last week was a good one on the sewing front,  finishing a quilt is always a nice accomplishment.  Even better, I didn't have to neglect the rest of my to do list to make that happen.  

We were home most of this week and with the triple digits outside staying in my sewing room seemed to be the best option.  I did get a lot done, it just doesn't feel that way.  

We were in Dallas for the weekend, so I didn't get much sewing done. I worked a lot on the instructions for this year's Guild BOM, so that was my "stitching" activity for the weekend. That wasn't on last week's list, but it needs to get done.  There was some good progress on last week's to do list before we left.  

It's been a laid back week.  Summer tends to produce a lot of those, it's too hot to do much outside, so why leave the house.  I didn't complete everything on my to do list, but there was progress on every item.  

Hard to believe over half of 2026 is already past. The end of the year will come up quickly. So far I've stuck to the main strategy that was posted in January, but the priorities of some of the projects has changed.  That's not so bad.  The plan for second and third quarters was to focus on moving UFOs to finished, or at least closer to finished.  I'm going to stick with that strategy.

1. Guild BOM 2026

The 2026 Guild BOM has to be finished by the November guild meeting.  The first draft of the block ...

Back in January, I drafted a strategic plan (?) for 2026.  Strategic Plan is probably a gross overstatement of what I actually put together, but it was at least a potential road map for my quilting decisions.  Now that we are in 3rd quarter, I should probably take a look at where I'm at and decide on any adjustments.  

2nd Quarter Strategy

1. Guild BOM: Finish May through October blocks.  Finish Flying geese. 

The May, June and July blocks are all finished.  The flying geese for the alternate border are also all finished.  The instructions are written for the August ...

My last to do list was almost a month ago.  With all the travel to and from Texas along with plans with My Girl, it was hard to assess what I was going to be able to work on. I didn't do so hot on addressing my last to do list, so I just used that one for a couple of weeks.  Even with three weeks, I didn't get to every item. 

After reviewing my first quarter progress, my second quarter overall strategy won't need to change. But I will need to adjust the project list for the quarter since there is a lot that didn't get finished in first quarter.  

Now that 2025 is over, it's time to review the progress on my PHD plan and link up with Ms. P Designs for the PHD Wrap Up report.   Looking back, my 2025 PHD report is probably my worst in the seven years I've participated.  

Hard to believe we are half way through 2025.  Now that it's July it's time to take another look at my progress with the June PHD report over at Ms. P Designs. 

I've not done so well on the finishing up front, but I have been making steady progress on several other projects.  

While cleaning up the sewing room, I found a very old counted cross stitch throw started back in college.  It's been added to my traveling handwork projects.  Not a lot of progress on this, but at least there's been some. I'd ...

Apparently a week in Texas with My Guy and Grad Girl was enough to get my missing sewing mojo to make a come back.  That week away definitely got me out of my rut.