What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Happy New Year!  Ready or not, it's 2026.  I'm definitely not ready. The first step in deciding my ambitions for 2026 is to look at how 2025 went.  Since 2018, I've played along with Quilting Jetgirl's Planning Party.  Yvonne has announced that 2025 is the last year she's going to host the party and the quarterly link ups.  Her quarterly check ups have been really helpful at making me look at my goals each year, which usually means I do something on them.  I'm not sure that worked so well for 2025.  At any ...

I'm never ready for the end of a year. With holidays in November and December, there are so many other things to think of. It always comes as a shock the day after Christmas to realize that the end of the year is a little less than a week away.  My thought's naturally turn to what I didn't get to this year and thinking of what to do better next year.  In all of those thought sessions it's so easy to loose track of all the cool things that happened in 2025.  So it's always ...

It's been hard to wrap my mind around the fact that it's October already.  Wasn't it just June?  The time went fast, probably because I was busy helping Grad Girl with the transition from student to working woman.  She defended her thesis, graduated, moved home, found a job, finished her first quilt top and then moved back Texas. Most of that has happened since June.  I didn't spend as much time in the sewing room over those months.  Consequently, there was this sinking feeling when Yvonne of Quilting JetGirl posted the Q3 CheckIn. 

Looking back at my blog, my last to do list was posted over a month ago. Life's been busy with getting Grad Girl set up in her new situation.  I'm going to need a new blog nick name for her since she's not a graduate student any more.  I'm sure we'll come up with something suitable that she can tolerate.  

It was nice to get back to the sewing room on Sunday.  After a week away from home, the first decision was to decide what to work on.  I finished off the August inverted star block for the guild BOM so I was free to work on something else.  Since I'd really like to get another finish in soon, the project box with the quilted Kate's Choice blocks was pulled off the shelf.  First step was to cut the sashing strips for the front and back of the quilt and attach those. 

July was a busy month. I was away from home for over a week helping Grad Girl move.  So there's not a lot of progress to report for the July PHD report over at Ms. P Designs.  

There are no updates to my PHD log.  No finishes, but no new starts either.  I can at least celebrate that!  There has been progress on some other projects this month.  

There's been a bit of progress on the Rose Throw counted cross stitch project.  I just didn't feel like doing much handwork this month.  Does it look like a ...

We've been enjoying a bit of cooler weather the last few days. It was a nice start to August.  I'm still working on getting used to my new schedule.  Grad Girl takes care of herself, but the keeping the cat happy still takes a bit of work.  Though neither affected my time in the sewing room this last week, but for some reason I struggled with my to do list.  

It was a slow, stay around the house kind of weekend.  We went to church and that's about it.  Most of my weekend was spent in my sewing room.  My focus was to make some good progress on my "quilt as you go" project, Kate's Choice.  

I'm a day late posting this week's to do list. We are still working with uncertain scheduling since Grad Girl and Queenie moved home.  Grad Girl left yesterday morning for Houston. She has two job interviews this week.  Which means I'm on kitty babysitting duty, that includes at least 30 minutes to an hour of outside time in the morning.  She's used to having access to a third floor balcony to observe life from.  We have a fenced backyard, but Queenie is far from an outside cat and we're not sure she'd stay in ...

We all expected an adjustment with Grad Girl moving home till she finds a job.  It's not so much having Grad Girl home, she's pretty self sufficient. But her cat, Queenie, has had a harder time adjusting.  I think she's finally getting over the stress of moving. But probably, it's that she's gotten us through the initial training of having a cat running the home.  

I finally got back to my quilt as you go project this weekend.  

Three blocks in row 5 of Kate's Choice are completely quilted and a fourth is almost ...

It's been two weeks since my last to do list post.  Between being way to busy packing and moving Grad Girl, plus the lack of Internet, putting a list together last week just didn't happen. So here's the progress on my last to do list. 

To Do List for 07/08/2025

1. Guild BOM: Finish August blocks - progress

2. Old Town: Continue assembly at late night sew ✔

3.  Wild and Goosey: Make purple, sash red blocks ✔

4.  Embroidery or Cross Stitch: Work on one night ✔

5.  Summer Scrap Quilt: Continue as leaders and enders ✔

There was ...

The end of June is not only mid year, it is the end of the 2nd quarter.  When I was working, mid year progress reviews were required. I don't have a supervisor anymore, but Quilting Jetgirl has a linky party up for the 2025 Quilting Q2 Check In, which is a good reminder to check how it's going with my 2025 quilty ambitions. 

It's so easy to set your goals at the beginning of the year and just forget about them.  I'm guilty of that, but maybe not so much this year.  I know what they ...

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 ...

The year is half over.  I'm always amazed at how quickly we get to this point.  We were in Crown Center in Kansas City last week for a conference. The Hallmark store there was setting up for this year's ornament display.  Christmas will be here before most of us are ready I'm sure.  

There really was a plan to post last week, but I'd forgotten how hard it is when you have an early morning start and have to find coffee and breakfast before your first session.  Meetings all day and then social networking meetings in the evenings, left me pretty much spent at the end of the day. I don't do this type of stuff very often now that I'm not working.  It was fun though, I miss the technical part of being a research chemist and I definitely got to do some technical stuff during the meeting.  

Do you ever look at your calendar and realize that you don't really have that much time to get ready for something?  Grad Girl will be moving home next month.  She's been applying for jobs and has had one video interview so far.  With the current job market, she's probably going to be here for at least a month, likely 2 to 3 before she finds a full time chemist job.  I've been using her old closet as storage for some of my quilting supplies, I'm going to have to find someplace else because she ...

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. 

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 ...

It was a nice weekend here. The weather was pretty weather and we  spent Sunday with my family.  My mother is doing better, but she tires easily these days, still we had a good visit.