What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

The big thing that wasn't on my to do list for last week was to watch the eclipse. We ventured down to Texas so we could see totality.  My Guy had the special filters and such for his camera, I didn't get that motivated. Even so,  I did get a cool photo during totality.  

We'd had mostly cloudy skies all morning, but we got lucky and the sun was in a clear patch for almost all of totality.  This photo was taken with my cell phone with no filters.  My Guy had his DSLR set up with ...

First quarter is over and we are already a few days into the 2nd quarter of 2024.  Since March is over, it's time to look my progress towards a PHD and link up with P Designs USA for the March PHD report. This month the report shows a finish for the first time this year. 

Still a long way to go to reach PHD status. But it's nice having the first finish in March versus waiting till September. 

A Flutter was sent for quilting in February.  This quilt was started in 2013, it was my second Rainbow Scrap ...

It's definitely spring in Oklahoma. We spent about half an hour in the storm shelter last night in response to tornado warnings.  The news is reporting damage in one of the smaller towns to the south and east of us. We experienced some pretty strong winds and a bit of hail, but we never lost power. Still I'll have to do a walk around to check for lost shingles, the winds did get pretty high.  

The storms meant no evening stitching, which meant I didn't quite get to everything on my to do list for last week ...

It was a good week.  I've gotten a handle on the leg issues, physical therapy and anti-inflammatories are keeping the pain at bay. I do have to be careful on the stairs, getting in and out of the car and changing direction when walking.  But that's not been too hard to manage.  So I was able to spend a lot of time in the sewing room, which means really good progress on last week's to do list. 

To Do List for 3/19/2024

1.  Stay at Home Round Robin: Finish border # 6 ✔

2.  Guild BOM: Finish ...

I don't usually post twice in one day, but today is the last day to link up with the quilt parade for the 2024 Stay At Home Round Robin over at Quilting Gail's.  The last border strip was added late yesterday afternoon. Last year I didn't finish the 2023 SAHRR quilt top till June. I'm very happy to have a finished quilt top before the end of March this year. 

The prompt for border #6 was a letter or a number.  I decided to go with an hourglass block, which looks like the letter X.  

My ...

Just so you know, also this week I wrote a few stories, made ink and paper drawings, and cooked. 

(I am starting with the round robin, then we will see the Project quilting piece. If you're only here for PQ feel free to scroll down)

The first image is the center of my quilted SAHRR and here it is finished, including a hanging sleeve!

about 32" square

If you've been seeing these finishes you ...

It was a good week on the progress front, not such a great week for getting things checked off the to do list. 

To Do List for 3/12/2024

1. Stay at Home Round Robin: Finish border #6 - progress

2. Scrappy Butterflies: Finish binding ✔

3. Guild BOM: Fix February block, make March block - progress

4. Malted Mystery: Finish Feb clue, start March clue - no progress

5. Wild and Goosey: Continue making purple blocks ✔

6. Indigo Way: Continue as leaders and enders ✔

Three check marks out of six, with progress on two others really isn't a bad week. I ...

I'm late posting this morning.  I had an early morning doctor's appointment to go over the MRI results on my knee.  When I mess myself up, apparently I don't do anything in halves. Both meniscus in my right knee are torn. So that will mean surgery, probably later this spring. We'll see how long I'm out of the sewing room when we get to that.  For now, I'll keep working to finish off a few projects before I end up on restrictions. 

This weekend was a mixed bag on the stitching front.  I did ...

This is my rainbow scrap challenge purple piece for the week.... all the papers are now basted and ready for me to hand stitch while watching tv tonight. I love having a variety of scraps so that I can see my fabrics! I'm trying to do dots in all the joining hexie shapes in each colorway. 

I used my portable design table (cardboard covered in felt) to arrange these a few days ago. I didn't like one of them so I found another scrap to baste around the paper ...

It certainly seems like March is moving along.  Friday is the halfway point of the month.  The end of the month marks the end of the first quarter of 2024.  There is still 3/4 of the year left, but boy does it seem like time is moving quickly.  

Thankfully I was able to make good use of the time I had last week so there was good progress on the To Do List. 

To Do List for 3/5/2024

1. Stay at Home Round Robin:  Finish border 5, work on border 6 ✔

2. Betty: Finish borders ✔

3. Malted ...

The leg continues to heal, but then I had some issues with my back one evening.  A couple of days on muscle relaxants and the back is as normal as it gets these days. That did cut into my sewing time a couple of evenings, I just didn't feel much like sewing a lot.  It certainly seems I get one body part healed and something else goes out. Unfortunately a trade in just isn't in the cards, so maintenance is key from here on out.  

I was a bit off my game most of the week.  Fitting in physical therapy and some time with an ice pack afterwards has skewed my schedule a bit.  The medication is messing with my sleep schedule a bit and that has definitely taken a toll too.  I made it to the sewing room every day, but just didn't have the energy to focus for long periods of time.  All that to say, I didn't do so hot on last week's to do list. 

To Do List for 02/27/2024

1. 2024 SAHRR: Finish borders 5 ...

It wasn't a bad week in the sewing room, but not making it up the sewing room for a couple of days last week really put me behind on my ongoing quilt alongs.  I did make good progress on the 2024 SAHRR, but wasn't able to finish off border #5 this weekend. 

February always feels like such a shock after January. The first month of the year always seems to be so long and then you blink and February is over.  As the month is over it's time to review my progress (or lack thereof) on my PHD in 2024 and link up with P Designs USA for the February report.  The report is about where I expected it to be at this point, so no surprise on my part.

No finishes as yet and one new start.  Looks like I'm going in the wrong direction.  Maybe, maybe not.  There ...

Let's start the week with the last row on my stay at home round robin quilt

the prompt was "letters or numbers" so I found a wonderful quote on sunflowers, changed it up a bit, and printed it onto a sheet of prepared for printing sheets

along with an image of one of my paintings (not to waste the sheet of printable fabric on one quote)

I pieced it in with some blue sky fabric, bird and dragonfly fabrics... 

I think it needs a bit of border around the whole thing, like a frame, how about this sparkly blue ...

Last week's To Do List post was so optimistic. Things worked out that way in the end, but it went way south before things got on the right path. I wasn't able to walk up the stairs to my sewing room for a couple of days, so that definitely impacted how much got done on last week's check list. 

Week 5 of the SAHRR ends today.  Up to this week, I'd done such a good job of keeping up. Unfortunately, some health issues really limited my sewing room time this week.  It didn't help that my first idea for the border turned out to be a bit unreasonable to piece in a timely manner, so I ended up coming up with plan 2. I did make some progress, just not nearly as much as I would have liked. 

It  required all my creativity!   

Click on images to enlarge them

Let's start with the Project Quilting piece. The prompt was "hourglass" and we had one week to design, make and finish it. Here is my finished project

It will hang in my studio, reminding me of the speed of time (tempus Fugit ) that artists are happy when they are creating

I started with cutting two triangles of peltex stiff stabilizer, covering them with backing brought to the front

choosing which of my ...

It's not been the best week.  The pinched nerve in my leg is slowly improving, but I'm still pretty slow and sore. Add to that My Guy has a stomach virus.  The only good thing out of that is I've been sleeping on the couch due to my leg and apparently missed out on the virus. Thankfully my stitching time hasn't been impacted too badly and I did pretty well with last week's long to do list.  

To Do List for 02/12/2024

1. 2024 SAHRR: Finish border #4  ✔

2. Betty: Start assembling quilt ...