Slow Going

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.  

Looking back at last week, I didn't do a lot in the sewing room.  The most progress was made on quilting the Kate's Choice blocks.

 

The blocks in the first 3 rows are quilted and the first block for row 4 is done. So just over halfway there.  I've switched out the walking foot for my regular sewing foot, so I'll get back to working on some of my other projects the first part of this week. I'll go back to quilting more blocks next weekend.  

Linking up with Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 19 of 2025

 

Hope all the mothers have their kind of day.  I'm spending mine with my mom, but won't get to see my girl this year. 

I wasn't very motivated this week.  Sometimes you just need to do something else. Reading was big on my list of something else for some reason.  Even so I still managed at least 15 minutes of stitching stuff each day.  

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/May = 10/10 days
• 15 minute days/2025 = 125/130 days
• Success rate = 96.15%

Not a bad week, just not as productive in the sewing room as I had planned.  So much for trying to maximize my sewing time this month. 

On the stash reorganization front, there was some progress on the fabric closet organization. 

Five pieces of yardage, plus 2 half yard cuts were pressed and folded.  The two blues on the bottom are 4 to 5 yard cuts.  It's a nice chunk to have ready to go for what ever projects I get up to later this year. 

How did you do on your stitching and organization goals this week?

Week 140: Tree(s)

This week's photo challenge was pretty easy compared to several we've had over the last couple of months. 

The weather hasn't been too wet this week, well at least not here. Grad Girl has definitely gotten soaked a couple of times this week on her walk back to the car. So it hasn't been too hard to get out with the cameras.  My Guy and I photographed the same event, but ended up with very different photos.  

Kate: A Year Later

On May 6, 2024 we spend one of the scariest hours of my life in our tornado shelter. We were very lucky, the closest damage to us was about 2 miles to the north of us.  The community of Barnsdall, located to the west and south of us, took a direct hit from what was later determined to be an EF4 tornado. My photo is taken from one of our walking trials just to the south and east of the high school.  A year later you can still trace the path of the tornado through the woods by just tracking the tree damage. 

My Guy's photo also relates to that same event. 

My Guy: Survivor Elm

If you look closely you can see a bit of damage on this elm.  There used to be another elm next to it, but it was destroyed in the tornado. This is north and east of town.  From this photo you'd never know there had been a storm as the land owners cleaned up the damages.  We've been lucky this year so far, lots of strong wind and rain with a little hail.  The rivers are up, but not at flood stage, at least not yet.  

Grad Girl is almost finished with the second draft of her thesis and has started job hunting in earnest.  She'll graduate this summer.  So she's not out and about much yet, so her photo comes from her walk to the car after a full day of editing. 

Texas A&M has a beautiful campus.  They need the wide walk ways since the number of students is over 70,000.  You need the shade trees in the summer because it gets hot!  

This week's challenge is another very appropriate to the season. 

It's a good time of year to photograph gardens. Hopefully we'll come up with something interesting.  

To Do List for the Week of 05/06/2025

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

To Do List for 4/29/2025

1.  2025 Guild BOM: Finish June blocks ✔

2.  Kate's Choice: Continue quilting blocks ✔

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

4.  Glowing Hearts: Cut fabrics ✔

This week's list looks long, but most of it is prep work, not actual sewing.  

To Do List for 5/6/2025

1.  Kate's Choice: Continue to quilt blocks

Finished row 2 and got started on row 3.  I'm hoping to finish row 3 and get started on row 4 this week. I'll work on blocks till the weekend, then I'll change out the walking foot for my regular foot and work on some of my projects needing block construction. 

2. 2025 Guild BOM: Pick fabrics for July blocks

The plan is to work ahead so I'm not finishing blocks the day of the guild meeting.  July blocks have to be ready for the June meeting.  

3. Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter): Find backing fabric

This is next in line to be quilted, so I'm trying to get it ready while I'm still working on Kate's Choice.  

4.  Glowing Hearts (MMM Quilts):  Finish piecing blocks. 

Three are the blocks are finished.  All the pieces are cut, I just need to sit down at the machine and do the assembly.  

That's my list for this week.  Short and hopefully doable even with annoying sinus stuff going on. Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.  

Plans for May?

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 to the finished quilt top stage, but it's been slow moving projects past that. I've started doing some quilting with my walking foot and really want to use the learning curve there to get some of my smaller quilts finished this year.  I'm still working on the Kate's Choice blocks and am hoping to get that project very close to finished by the end of the month.  The next project I want to quilt with the walking foot is Chilhowie, the 2022 Bonnie Hunter Mystery.

The quilt top was finished last September.  My Chookshed Challenge for May is to find the backing fabric, make the backing and prep for quilting. I'm hoping to get as far as getting the quilt sandwiched and ready to quilt. But I'll take any progress I can make on this project.

I gave into temptation and started a new project last weekend.  Sandra of MMM Quilts started a quilt along last month, Glowing Hearts.  It looked like fun, plus the resulting quilt would be small enough to quilt on my machine with the walking foot.  I cut all the fabrics and got started stitching on the blocks this weekend. Here's the first block. 

I had to make the alternate block to see how it looked.  

I decided to keep the background fabric the same for all the blocks as there is more than enough of the teal/blue background. The colors are working much better than I expected.  Hopefully there is a dark blue/navy in the stash to use for the sashing and borders.  Since the bundle from the stash had half yard cuts, the plan is to make 12 blocks rather than the 9 Sandra used. That should make nice sized quilt for donation.  

Linking up with the regular Monday linky parties: Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts, plus the Chookshed Challenge and MMM Quilts Glowing Hearts first block.