What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Last week required a bit of retooling.  I attended a chemistry conference.  Something that's been off the to do list since I retired.  I had to wear dress up clothes and heels. Plus remember a bit of chemistry and statistics.  It was fun and I'm going to be more active going forward.  I've missed the technical parts of my previous job, joining a couple of the technical committees will help fill that void.  

It was another low key weekend. I can certainly get used to those.  We've got some family stuff coming up soon, so we'll be pretty busy for a few weeks, so I'll enjoy them while I have them.  

Most of this weekend was spent in the sewing room.  I don't think I made up for all lack of motivation I had most of last week, but there was good progress on getting fabrics cut for the guild BOM. I also replenished the black triangles needed for the Wild and Goosey blocks.

On the actual sewing front ...

It was a low key weekend, most of which I spent in the sewing room.  Not all of it at the sewing machine.  There was a fair amount of scrap sorting and fabric pressing. There was also a quick clean up of the desk and sewing area.  Most of the progress at the sewing machine was making a some blocks for Kate's Choice. 

My plan is to all some more of the lighter blocks to the collection to balance out the dark green and deep purples.  

The fabric for the 2024 SAHRR backing was cut and the panels all ...

Wishing those in the United States a very happy Memorial Day.  We didn't make any special plans for the weekend, which is probably for the best as the weather here and in the surrounding states hasn't resulted in the best holiday for many. The worst storms in Oklahoma stayed south of us, all we got was some very heavy rain.  But we were tuned into the local weather coverage for quite a while Saturday night, way past our normal bedtime.  

There's been a bit of progress on the Kate's (Grandmother's) Choice blocks.

Storms rolled through overnight.  There was some impressive, rattle the windows thunder along with them. The storm didn't keep us up all night, but it wasn't the most restful night of sleep I've had.  

We had a wet and dreary weekend for the most part.  I came down with a 24 hour stomach bug Saturday night.  So I didn't get all that much done at the sewing machine.  I'm almost finished with the April block for the guild BOM. 

We were lucky this weekend, the worst of the storms either went northwest of us or stayed south of us.  We did get plenty of the wind and rain. The storms that hit Saturday night/Sunday morning were bad because the worst of the storm came very early in the morning.  Those are nights you make sure you have shoes by the bed and what's going into the storm shelter with you (jackets, water, etc) is located on the path to the garage. We didn't need the shelter last weekend, but we have used it once since the ...

It's been a couple of weeks since I've posted a Monday post on just stitching stuff.  The eclipse trip, along with prep and recover from knee surgery has limited my sewing room time.  So my stitching efforts have been focused on my long term travel project.  My goal was one full thread of stitching time each day while we were on the road. The first top wing of the butterfly was finished off last week.  

Since I had to go off my anti-inflammatory before surgery, it was really uncomfortable to manage the stairs, so I kept to the ...

Did you have a family celebration for Easter?  We didn't this year, we mostly just hung out at home for the weekend.  I spent the afternoon in the sewing room working to finish the last border for the Malted Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs).  

The dark blue used in the border looks black, it's just hard to photograph it accurately under the lighting conditions in my sewing room.  This is one of my favorite Meadow Mist Designs mystery designs from Cheryl.  It kept me guessing. I wondered where we going to use those blocks in the last border.   

This ...

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 ...

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 ...

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.  

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. 

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. 

No winter precip this weekend, but it was cold. So it was definitely a hang out in the sewing room weekend.  The main priority was to finish the prompt for week #4 of the SAHRR posted by Songbird Designs. You could choose from square in a square blocks or blocks set on point.  

I went with the square in a square blocks around two corners.  It's been fun to watch this quilt come together.  The prompt for border #5 will be posted over at Quilting Gail's on Monday morning.  I'm looking forward to seeing what's next ...

This week I had hoped to finish off the third round of borders for the SAHRR before Sunday evening.  I was doing so well Friday on getting my triangle borders pulled together.  The first set of border blocks went up on the design wall just before dinner on Friday.  Something  didn't look right.  The diamond tips don't line up.  

I'm paper piecing these diamonds. Note that a diamond is made up of two equilateral triangles and four isosceles triangles. These look wonky because the center diamonds aren't made from two equilateral triangles. I didn't draw ...

It's been a cold and rainy day, perfect for lots of sewing time.  My focus today was to finish the second border for this year's SAHRR.  Last week's prompt was from Anja Quilts, using just two colors do anything you like for the second border.  I decided to go simple. 

The rail fence borders were pretty easy, but those 9 patches with the 1" orange strips weren't as easy.  I didn't do too badly at matching the corners up with the sides, but even being just a tad off shows up with those bold colors ...

I did this to myself last year too.  Being retired it was so easy to say, "I have lots of time for new projects."  Ha! Maybe that would be true if I'd just stick with one new project after the madness of the Bonnie Mystery that wrapped up New Year's Day.  But no, I really wanted to play along with 2 quilt alongs that started in January.  It took me all weekend, but I'm caught up on both!  

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 ...

It's cold! I know we have it easy compared to those north of us, but once you get past a certain point it's all just cold.  It's -1 F at the moment.  We are supposed to get up into the teens today. That's a heat wave compared to our high of 5 F yesterday. 

The one good thing about the cold and snow is that it's a very good reason to spend most of Sunday in the sewing room.  I spent most of the morning cutting scraps and yardage for the Just Two Charm Pack ...