What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

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 ...

It was wet, rainy and cold on Sunday. So I responded accordingly and spent pretty much the whole day in my sewing room.  I managed to move a few projects along.  The center of the 2021 Bonnie Hunter Mystery, Rhododenron, is assembled and up on the design wall. 

I'm happy with how it's come together so far. I've also been working on the flying geese for the pieced border this week and almost have enough to start that border. But before I get to that, I need to trim up the center and add a narrow white ...

The plan was to finish one quilt a month starting in September. Due to vacation, I got behind in October.  Even so, I'm still happy to have the Macaron Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs) quilt finished. 

 We went from the 80's last weekend to the 40's this weekend. Plus it was rainy and windy.  It was perfect sewing room weather. I finally bit the bullet and cut out the setting tringles for Rhododendron, crossing my fingers that I had the correct measurements.  Based on how it's going together I got it right.  

I'm just about halfway done with the construction.  So far, so good.  Bonnie used flying geese in a pieced border. I'm going to do that too, but a little differently than what she did.  I should pull those out ...

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 ...

It's been a couple of weeks since I've written a Monday post.  Vacation was fun, but it was nice to be back home and spend most of the weekend in the sewing room.  Saturday afternoon Scrappy Butterflies (self designed) had the last of the border strips attached. It's now a finished quilt top. 

The butterfly blocks were started in 2013 as my second Rainbow Scrap project.  I couldn't decide on a setting, that's why these blocks have languished on the UFO list for so long.  It feels really good to get them into a finished ...

The first half of the year was all about new starts.  Two of the three 2023 projects have made it to the finished quilt top stage.  So for the last half of the year I'm prioritizing moving some quilts to the finished quilt stage.  The first big hurdle in that plan was getting Unity prepped to go out for quilting.  Unity was started in April of 2020 when Bonnie Hunter offered the Sew-In-Place quilt along to help all of us cope with the Covid pandemic. I made the last stitch to the binding on Tuesday, September 19th.  

Unity is ...

It's not quite autumn here, the highs have been in the high 80s, lower 90s. But it's amazing how much of a relief that is from the 99+ days we had for most of the summer.  Unfortunately our autumns, and springs too, seem to last for only a week or so before we go on to the next extreme.  I'm not ready for winter.  

The lower temps have made the sewing room much more bearable in the afternoons, I don't have to turn down the air conditioning to work now. Which means I have been spending ...

Before I start my Monday post, I always read over what I wrote for the previous week's post.  Some weeks all I can do is shake my head and wonder what was I thinking.  The plan was to get Scrappy Butterflies assembled last Monday.  Didn't happen, not even close.  It was a week of, wrong block in the wrong place. Tried to take it off the row, unstitched the wrong seam.  I did this not once, but twice on two different rows.  So all I have to show for my progress is this:

The pieces are all sewn ...

Someone shared recently that a group of butterflies is known as a Kaleidoscope. I'm sorry I don't remember who shared it, but I think it's a very fitting moniker for those colorful creatures.  It's very high in the running for the name of what I've been calling scrappy butterflies.  

The top and bottom border rows are sewn together. The top border and the next two rows are sewn together.  I've been working on assembling the bottom two rows of blocks.  The final two pieced side border blocks are under construction.  I'm happy with ...

I'm not ready for it to be Monday again. I don't leave the house to work these days, but Monday does mean a return to household chores and other necessary things that really have to get done.  We spent most of the weekend in Tulsa, so I didn't get in my usual weekend stitching time.  But it was nice to do something different.  We volunteered at Wild Brew, a fundraising event for George Miksch Sutton Avian Research Center.  My Guy has helped rebuild Masked Bobwhite habitat in Arizona and spends a number of his Sundays driving/hiking ...

It was really warm this weekend. Plus the late rains this year have produced a bumper crop of ragweed, so my sinuses have not been happy.  Definitely time to stay in and stitch. It's been a good week on that front, a couple of projects hit major milestones.  Melodic Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs 2022 mystery quilt) is now a finished quilt top.

The colors aren't really true in the photo, the pinks are much brighter and so is the green used in the sashing and borders.  I'm happy with my color choices for this one and pleased ...

The Monday post is a bit late this week for the second time in less than a month.  Let's just say the morning didn't get off to the best start, but everything has lined out since then.  

I spent most of last week working on prepping Unity (Bonnie Hunter) to send out for quilting. 

I ended up with quite a nest of loose threads at the end. But the quilt is pressed and folded so it can be packaged up. 

So this afternoon I need to track down a box, pull some batting and finish getting it ready ...

So far this year has been mostly all about new quilt projects. That was deliberate on my part. I'd been on a new project diet for at least three years but the focus on just UFOs had gotten a bit old.  So this year my quilt plan had 5 new quilts rather than just the two I'd been allowing myself.  I've started two of those, plus one that wasn't on the plan.  Start number 4 will be Meadow Mist Designs Malted Mystery, one of my guilty pleasures when I was focused on the UFOs. 

This weekend ...

It's after lunch, so I'm really, really late with my typical Monday morning post.  But it has been one of those Mondays where the day just started wrong and went downhill from there. Grad Girl had asked me to take care of some paperwork for her that's due today.  I realized while I was having my coffee and reviewing my to do lists that I had completely spaced it off. So rather than housework, I needed to head out before 9 to get that taken care of.  

While I was contemplating that change in plans, My Guy ...

Moving Grad Girl took up most of last week.  I got back from Texas late Friday. Moving in 100 plus temperatures really takes it out of you. We didn't get to bed till midnight several nights, way past my normal bed time. Unfortunately My Guy wasn't able to take off work to come help, so it was just us girls. But we managed pretty well.  Grad Girl has some awesome grad school girl friends who came to help with the heavy lifting.  Still, I spent Saturday in recovery mode with a lot of reading and resting. 

I didn ...

Last week was a bit hit or miss in the sewing room.  Grad Girl was home for the week and we did spend some time in the sewing room hanging out, but sometimes there was more talking going on then there was stitching.  She headed back to Texas on Saturday, so my plan for Sunday was to spend my readjustment time in the sewing room.  First off I discovered that the borders for block 9 of Diatom weren't assembled properly.  After a bit of unsewing they are ready to be reassembled properly. 

I think what happened is I was ...

It definitely feels like summer.  I keep moving my morning walk earlier and earlier because once the sun is up, it gets warm fast!  The heat has definitely been one reason I've spent so much time in the sewing room this week. So there's been good progress on several projects.  

Diatom (Quilting Jetgirl) block 8 is finished.  

I've really enjoyed working on this project.  Block 9 is now in the works. 

The last borders were added to the SAHRR.

This was my first try at the SAHRR. I'm really happy with how it came out.  This ...

Is it really Monday again?  We had a really slow weekend. I took My Guy out for Father's Day on Saturday.  We did a Zoom call with Grad Girl so she could see him open what she'd sent him.  I didn't sew much on Friday or Saturday as even my magic sewing room chair wasn't comfortable after I reinjured my back during physical therapy.  By Sunday I was feeling much better so there was some progress on a few things in the sewing room. Most of my progress is on my project for the Just Two ...

The one good outcome from my back injury last weekend is that it gave me a reason to spend a lot of my week in the sewing room.  My back is much improved, but I'm still being cautious about tackling some of the bigger housework tasks.