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This year has been one of transition.  I retired late in 2022, so 2023 was the first year since I was 16 without a work schedule.  At least a work schedule outside the house. So it's been a year of adjustments and discovery as to what one does when there is not a demanding job requiring daily attention.  Spending time in the sewing room has gone up, but not as much as I thought it would. There are still days I have to remind myself to get my 15 minutes of stitching time in. I've certainly posted more ...

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 ...

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 ...

Hard to believe that more than half of September is in the books.  Looking at what's on my calendar, the end of the year will come really quickly.  Consequently my to do lists are getting longer.  Last week's list was up to six items, which makes it harder to check off the entire list.    

To Do List for 9/12/2023

1. Unity (Helianthus): Make label, binding, finish - progress

2. Macaron Mystery: Prep quilt top for quilting - no progress

3. Scrappy Butterflies: Finish top assembly ✔

4. Malted Mystery: Continue to work on clue 3 ✔

5. Wild and Goosey ...

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 ...

Where did the last week go?  I worked in my stitching time each day, but it wasn't enough to check off all the items on my to do list. 

To Do List for 9/5/2023

1. Macaron Mystery: Prep back for quilting ✔

2. Scrappy Butterflies: Finish border blocks, finish assembly - progress

3. Wild and Goosey: Make 2 blocks - no progress

4. Malted Mystery: Start on clue 3 ✔

5. Chilhowie: Continue as leaders and enders ✔

Three out of 5, with progress on the 4th to do item isn't a bad week. I didn't get my typical nothing ...

I'm really not ready for it to be September.  The last four months of the year seem to speed by, I guess because we've got the holidays at the end of them.  Even though I'm not ready for the new month, I am happy with all the progress in August. So though I have no finishes to show off for the PHD in 2023 challenge, I can link up over at Quilting Gail's and not feel too badly this month.

Still no new finishes, but also no new starts.  So there ...

I seem to have gotten my startitis under control. And I finally tackled the project that's been filling me with dread ever since it became a finished quilt top. So definitely a good week for the to do list. 

To Do List for 8/8/2023

1. Unity: Finish prep, send out for quilting - progress

2. Wild and Goosey: Make 2 yellow blocks ✔

3. Melodic Mystery: Continue assembly of quilt top ✔

4. Chilhowie: Continue as leader and enders ✔

5. Sewing room clean up: Reorganize project boxes ✔

I'm happy with the 4 check marks with progress on the 5th ...

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 ...

This week has gotten off to a much cooler start than last week.  We had a rainy weekend in the first time in a long while. It made for a very nice, cool walk yesterday.  I'm sure it will heat back up again, we don't really see fall temperatures here till late September or early October.  Which really isn't all that far off. The end of the year will be here before we know it.  I'm trying to make sure some of those things I want to get done by the end of the year show ...

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 August?  This year is certainly moving quickly.  August is usually the hottest month of the summer.  Fingers crossed we end up with a cooler month than average. It's been so hot, a lot of us are more then ready for some cooler weather.  

The hot weather is great at encouraging me to spend more time in my air conditioned sewing room. That paid off with progress on last week's to do list. 

To Do List for 7/25/2023

1. Diatom: Finish blocks 10, 11 &12 ✔

2. Wild and Goosey: Cut red scraps and make 1 ...

This last week seemed to go really quickly. Not sure why, maybe because My Guy was home sick a couple of days or because I actually had a day out on Friday. Coffee with friends, a spur of the moment trip to the local quilt shop and a walk in the park was a nice break from the routine. It didn't impact my stitching time, I did mostly OK on last week's To Do List.  

To Do List for 1/31/2023

1. SAHRR: Finish Border 1, start border 2 ✔

2. Wild and Goosey: Make one bright blue ...

January always seems to pass so slowly, while all the other months of the year tend to wiz by.  Maybe it's because I'm in recovery mode from the holidays?  At any rate, today is the last day of January. February usually speeds by. I wonder if that will be the case now that I'm retired?  

It was a good week on the stitching front. No fever for 24 hours as of Sunday morning, so we were able to get mostly back to normal in terms of living arrangements.  Thankfully staying on 2 separate floors seems to have been effective, My Guy never did test positive for Covid. 

Other than the low grade fever, I felt pretty good most of the week and made some good progress on my To Do List. 

Weekly To Do List for 1/10/2023

1. Melodic Mystery: Finish half blocks for Jan clue ✔

2. Chilhowie: Finish first block and clue ...

I'm struggling a bit to think clearly.  Benadryl does wonders for allergies, but it also creates a lot of brain fog.  I think the cats, Grad Girls and my mom's, finally got to me yesterday.  Actually it's probably mostly due to my mom's cat.  He decided to sleep next to my head Tuesday night. Grad Girl and I drove back down to my mother's on Tuesday because it would cut 2.5 hours off GG's trip back to college and I needed to pick up some things that wouldn't fit in the car ...

A nice thing about a new year is that it's a way for us to reset and refocus our efforts. Really we can do that at any point in the year, but the new year just seems to be a natural reset point.  I've been pretty happy with my efforts with with To Do Tuesday, so I don't have any plans to change my approach there.  But there is a change in the hostess this year. Carol of the Quilt Schmidt: For the Love of Fabric is taking over the care and feeding of the linky party ...

Just 31 days left in 2022.  I'm really not ready for that. On the other hand, this year hasn't been so great on a number of fronts, so I'm looking forward to the new year in hopes it's a lot better.  Since it is a new month, it's time to summarize my progress on earning my PHD and share over at Quilting Gail's.  It's not a stellar report, but there has been some progress on all the active projects.  

No new finishes, but one new start. The clues for both mystery quilts won ...

We are halfway through November. The weather has turned cold, so you'd think I'd be able to wrap my head around the fact that Thanksgiving is next week and December starts the week after that.  I'm definitely not ready to contemplate Christmas, so I'm going to avoid and think about stitching stuff like last week's To Do List. 

To Do List for Week of 11/8/2022 

1. Unity: Prep backing for quilting ✔

2. Macaron Mystery: Find backing fabric ✔

3. Melodic Mystery: Work on clues 2 and 3 ✔

4. Rhododendron Mystery: Work on blocks as ...

Winter isn't officially here till just before Christmas, but Mother Nature must have decided to get an early start with the winter weather. There is the possibility of freezing rain tonight into tomorrow.  Usually we don't see that kind of weather till after the first of the year. 

On the sewing room front, I finally got the vacuum cleaner upstairs to the sewing room. It definitely needed a good going over.  Actually my sewing room needs a good cleaning and decluttering just like the rest of the house.  Rather than going down that rabbit hole, I finally bit ...