What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

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.  

May went fast!  It didn't help that at about the halfway mark my sewing mojo disappeared.  So not as much progress as I would have liked for the month. But there is still a bit to report for the May PHD report over at Ms. P Designs.  

Finally a finish shows up on the PHD report, along with a new unplanned project. The finish is a project started this year, so there is still no progress on the UFO column.  

The 2025 SAHRR, aka Stars in a Derecho Sky, (Quilting Gail) was my finish for May.  Trudy, who has ...

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. 

My last two posts made it pretty clear that I've not been that interested in spending time in the sewing room this last week.  Progress on last week's to do list shows that.  

We had thunder and lightening Sunday afternoon, so it wasn't exactly wise to plug in the sewing machine. But even after the storm passed I had a hard time convincing myself to go sew. I did eventually make my way upstairs very late in the afternoon.  I made pretty good progress on several projects.  The only one worth showing is Glowing Hearts (MMM Quilts). 

I've not been paying attention to my calendar and several other activities have snuck up on me.  I have a statistics project that will need my attention over the next few weeks.  So I'll have to think what goes on my sewing to do list, especially for next week.  Before getting to that, I should look at how I did on last week's list.  Since we spent time with family for Mother's Day last weekend, I missed out on my normal "nothing but sewing day".  So I didn't get quite as far as I'd ...

I'm a bit late getting to my to do list for this week. All the rain has brought on lots of pollen and mold, two big allergens for me.  Lots of annoying allergy symptoms are sapping my enthusiasm for much of anything this week. I was tempted to not even draft a to do list, but if this keeps up, I'm going to need the motivation.  At least last week's list has all check marks

It doesn't seem all that long ago that we kicked off 2025, but now it's May. June follows, which means that mid-year isn't that far off.  Do you ever wonder what happened in the sewing room and why you don't have more done?  I could be sewing more, so my plan for May is to maximize my sewing time while still doing the other things that need to get done around the house.

My primary goal for the last couple of years is to make progress on my UFOs. I'm doing well on getting quilts ...