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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 ...

I've been trying to shift my perspective to appreciate progress at least as much as finishes. I'm still working on making that shift.  But the truth is, the goal for every project is to get it finished. This one has been on the "to be finished list" for quite awhile.  

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

I wasn't quite ready for January to be over.  Now that it's the first of February it's time to take stock and link up over at Ms. P Designs USA with my progress on my PHD in 2024. It's not the picture I'd hoped. 

No finishes and two starts, with a third start on tap for February.  I still have 11 months to get a few finishes.  Even though I didn't get to that point this month, there was a lot of progress on several projects. 

Scrappy Butterflies (self designed) is now prepped and ...

No power outages with the freezing rain we had from Sunday into Monday.  The roads were pretty much solid sheets of ice till sometime in the afternoon. Thankfully My Guy's company told everyone to work from home, so he didn't have to navigate that. It's supposed to reach low 40's here, I'm ready for a warm up, even just a small one.  

Cold, stay at home weather has been good for my sewing time.  I did pretty well checking off items on last week's list.  

To Do List for 1/16/2024

1.  2024 ...

We had freezing rain overnight.  During dinner My Guy got a text from work, saying it was a delayed start this morning.  He woke up to a text that said work from home.  The road does look pretty much like a solid sheet of ice.  It's supposed to get above freezing before noon, we'll see if that happens.  It's these kind of days that make me appreciate being retired.  

I used the cold as an excuse to hang out in the sewing room a lot this weekend.  Though the cold is also really conductive to warm naps ...

I'm ready for winter to be over, or at least for this brutally cold stuff to move out.  We've got one more day before we'll see any temps above freezing.  My Guy is working from home today, his offices are closed.  

The cold has been really conductive to spending time in the sewing room where the iron helps heat up the space.  Consequently, there are a lot of check marks on last week's  to do list. 

To Do List for 1/9/2024

1. 2024 SAHRR: Make center block - progress

2. Betty: Continue cutting fabrics ✔

3 ...

With Grad Girl here this last week, it's felt like vacation.  We've had our shopping day and our girls lunch. So it was a nice week on the family fun front. But the consequence is that there wasn't as much time in the sewing room and that shows in the progress on last week's list. 

To Do List for 01/02/2024

1. Indigo Way: Continue clues 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and start 8 ✔

2. Malted Mystery: Finish clue 6, start clue 7 - progress

3. Betty: Start cutting fabrics ✔

4. Scrappy Butterflies: prep backing - no ...

This will be my 6th attempt to achieve a PHD in quilting projects.  I've yet to manage that.  I doubt it happens this year either, but I won't know unless I try.  There are new hostesses for the PHD in 2024, Sharon Anderson and Susan Hatcher of Ms. P Designs USA.  Here's my list of this year's UFOs for the PHD in 2024.  

My strategy this year is to work on a new quilt or a quilt that needs the blocks assembled plus a quilt top to be finished or a quilt top to be assembled ...

We are already a couple of days into 2024, so it's definitely time to review my progress on my PHD projects this year and link one more time with Quilting Gail's PHD in 2023.  It definitely wasn't one of my more successful years in terms of finishes and my report shows that. 

I was able to add one more finish before the year ended.  That brings my total for the year to 3.  Not stellar, but it's one more than I finished last year.  I'll take an incremental increase. I finished three of the small ...

It's going to take me a while to get the 2024 part of my dates right.  That's always the trickiest thing about the new year. I need to pay bills today, so I should get lots of practice on that.  

At any rate, I'm starting my first to do list of the new year with a completed last to do list from 2023. 

To Do List for 12/26/2023

1. Indigo Way: Continue clues 2, 3, 4, start 5 and 6 ✔

2. Malted Mystery: Finish clue 5, start clue 6 ✔

3. Melodic Mystery: Finish hand stitching ...

Hard to believe it's December.  Just one month left to reach all those goals we crafted so carefully last December. One of my goals was to play along with Quilting Gail's PHD in 2023 and do better than I did in 2022.  I'm linking up to the November PHD Update with a report that looks better then last month's. 

  

I finished a second quilt in November, which puts my PHD performance on par with last year's in terms of overall finishes.  In addition to the finish, there was good progress on several other projects. 

I'm still in recovery mode from Thanksgiving. We spent the holiday in Texas with Grad Girl. We had a lot of fun, but that drive back is just long.  We didn't get back till early evening yesterday.  At least this trip, My Guy and I could share the driving duties.  Even so, it's a long day in the car. 

Because of the holiday and our trip, last week's to do list was really simple.  

To Do List for 11/14/2023

1. Butterfly Medallion: Take a few stitches ✔

2. Enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday ✔

Keeping it simple ...

The weeks always seem to go so quickly as we get closer to the end of the year.  Last week seems to have just sped by somehow.  My ambitious to do list for the week was definitely too long.  

Another month gone, just two months left in the year.  It's time to review how well I'm doing on moving a few UFOs to finished and link up with Quilting Gail for the October PHD update.  At this point,  my PHD report isn't very impressive.    

The plan for November is to ...

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 end of September was hectic with vacation preparations, complicated by a three day migraine.  So blogging went out the window for several days.  Vacation preparations got done, but I didn't have the energy to get into the sewing room to get photos for my end of the month post.  Since I've not done anything stitching related for the last couple of weeks, all I have to post is progress on my quilting goals for the year and my PHD progress for September.  I'm linking up with Quilting Jetgirl's 2023 Q3 Check In.  

2023 Ambition #1 ...