To-Do-List Tuesday 7-30-24

I actually thought about skipping this post this week. I haven’t been able to get much done on it. I decided to go ahead and keep myself accountable, but there is not much to say about this list.

1) Do the prework for quilt guild workshop. Yes. This one had a deadline, so it got done. 

2) Finish quilt top from last month’s guild workshop. No

3) Income tax!  No

4) Finish Villa Rosa quilt top. No, although I did go to the quilt shop and get enough fabric for a couple of borders.

5) Work on Chicken Little quilt top. It is cut and ready to stitch. No

6) Quilt three quilts. I think I did two. That’s all I could find pictures for.

7) Julie’s tee shirt quilt. No

Oh well. There was a lot going on. The guild workshop took all of two days, and because of the rainy weather, the dogs kept the floors tracked up which meant extra vacuuming and mopping. I am still cooking for VBS for another two evenings, so I’m not sure how I’m going to get back on track. Here’s a quick list:

1) Quilt three quilts.

2) Bind two quilts.

3) Finish June workshop quilt.

4) Finish Villa Rosa quilt.

5) Work on Chicken Little quilt.

6) Julie’s tee shirt quilt.

7) Income tax

If I get three out of seven done, I’ll be happy. Life is crazy right now.

I am linking this post to Quilt Schmilt. Have a good week!

Rain and Sewing

We got two inches of rain yesterday. Some parts of town got 2-1/2”. Perfect weather for staying indoors and sewing! I got a few more tea towels done. 

I think this is enough for now, but who knows? I may get in the mood and do some more. 

Thursday and Friday was a quilt guild workshop, and those were both full days. I managed to get my fat quarters sorted and cut before the workshop. I separated everything by dark and light to ensure I had enough contrast.

I eliminated a few of the “mediums” and substituted some lights from my stash. We worked on these blocks:

It’s a Quiltworx pattern called “Island Sunrise”, but, it is of course a NY Beauty block. The blocks are around 6” finished. I should receive more pictures from the instructor of everyone’s blocks, but here is one I took:

I had hoped to get some more blocks done this weekend, but I can’t figure out what I did with the rest of my papers. I assume they will turn up somewhere, and if not, I’ll have to order more. We had a great instructor. The workshop was pretty intense, and I was exhausted Friday evening. I was too tired to cook and ended up picking up a bowl of ramen from the noodle shop. I went to bed early and slept pretty well.

We have a “give away” table at our guild meetings, and I picked up a book there.

The stories look interesting, although I probably won’t make the quilts. They are all based on templates instead of rotary cutting. I figured I could read it, and then return it to the give-away table when I am finished. 

To-Do-List Tuesday 7-23-24

Happy Tuesday! I wasn’t very good about sticking to my list—I sort of went rogue and worked on whatever struck my fancy. Yeah, that’s the story of my life, and it’s the reason I end up with so many UFO’s. Here’s are the results:

1) Income tax. It will stay on the list until I get it done. No. Sigh.

2) June and July BOM. No.

3) Quilt three quilts. Yes. 

I forgot to take pictures of the other two, but they are done.

4) Bind three quilts. No. I did one. 

5) Villa Rosa quilt. I got all the rows assembled; I just need to sew them together.

6) Logging On quilt. Yes. I got quite a bit done. 

7) Start on Julie's tee shirt quilt. No. 

I think I need to refocus. Or maybe I need a shorter list. LOL.

1) Do the prework for quilt guild workshop.

2) Finish quilt top from last month’s guild workshop.

3) Income tax!

4) Finish Villa Rosa quilt top.

5) Work on Chicken Little quilt top. It is cut and ready to stitch.

6) Quilt three quilts.

7) Julie’s tee shirt quilt.

Nope. It’s not shorter. I will be at the guild workshop on Thursday and Friday, and vacation bible school starts Sunday which means I will be cooking at church in the evenings. Hopefully I will have some free time. 

I am linking this post to Quilt Schmilt. Have a good week!

Progress

 I haven’t had a chance to use my new Go dies, but I was able to work on a lot of things. I finished another customer quilt

It is hand pieced, and I think she had planned to hand quilt it, the decided to just go ahead and get it machine quilted. The picture doesn’t really do it justice.

I worked on a couple of charity quilts which was nothing but frustrating, but at least I am getting them done. Neither was pieced by me…..

I got a binding put on a pre-quilted piece. 

It is two panels, but instead of cutting them apart, I stitched Rick rack over the cutting line and put the binding on. I got this teddy bear to go with it

It will go in the silent auction at church.

I happened to find out one of the local quilt shops has Sip and Sew on the third Friday of each month. I went Friday evening, and it was fun. Well, I only took water since I knew I had to drive home, but it was still fun. I looked at my to-do list to see what I needed to work on, and what did I do? I started a new project! I had some mini charms, and I made a table runner. 

It’s a project from this magazine.

It’s from 2018, and this is the first project I’ve made from it. Now I won’t feel guilty about passing it on. I went by the quilt shop yesterday and got some fabric I thought would work for a border.

I’m not sure I love it, though, so I may do something else. While I was in the quilt shop, I picked up a fat quarter pack and a couple of extra neutrals.

The fat quarter pack is called Chicken Little. I want to make the Villa Rosa pattern “Iced Tea” so I needed two extra neutrals. I got everything ironed and cut out last night. I like the chicken fabric.

I’m hoping to start on it today after church. I know I should be working on my to-do list, but it was energizing to start something new. 

Oh, I did a couple loads of laundry yesterday, vacuumed, and mowed the back yard. I got the mowing done right before the rain started.

The front yard got done Friday, so I am caught up on all of it for now. 

Another Good Day

I’ve been picking up my grandson from soccer practice this week. I took him to Lowe’s to get a picture with the Leo Messi cutout. He was surprised I didn’t know who Leo Messi was, but he was happy with the photo op.

 

I got the Go dies I ordered in the mail yesterday. 

I got the 2-1/2” x 4-1/2” to use for potato chip blocks and a 5” die to cut my own charm squares. They are having a Christmas in July sale, and I still have some things on my wish list, so we’ll see.

This got done yesterday:

I love the Tilda fabrics. She’s one of my favorite designers.

I went home early so I could mow, but it started thundering, and I decided to wait. I might regret that decision. We have an unusual July—it’s usually very dry, and we’ve been getting frequent, almost daily, rains. My plants are loving it. My Rangoon Creeper didn’t bloom last year, but it’s been blooming since June this year.

The Lantana is trying to come back.

These are two of the ones Michael dug up when he did my flower beds. The purple ones haven’t come back yet, but I think they will. They generally come up from the roots, and I see some green where they were planted, so I am hopeful.

To-Do-List Tuesday 7-16-24

Welcome to another Tuesday to-do list edition. I wasn't very good on working on my list, but I did spend more time than usual hanging out with friends.

1) Income tax! No, I managed to procrastinate another week.

2) Quilt three customer quilts. Two done plus one charity quilt. 

3) Finish June and July BOM’s. No.

4) Pink and black polka dot quilt. No.

5) Villa Rosa quilt. No.

6) Logging On quilt. Yes. I got a pretty good start on this one. I had cut these strips from Pioneer Woman fat quarters I bought when Walmart discounted them.

I was able to make quite a few blocks. 

Wow, that's a lot of "No's". Oh well, some weeks are like that, and I just have to be flexible with what I had planned to do. Here's my list for this week:

1) Income tax. It will stay on the list until I get it done.

2) June and July BOM.

3) Quilt three quilts.

4) Bind three quilts.

5) Villa Rosa quilt.

6) Logging On quilt.

7) Start on Julie's tee shirt quilt. 

I took the pink and black polka dot one off the list for now. I'm just not feeling it, and I will need to take a break from it and see if it inspires me at a later date.

There is yard work to be done this week, and probably cleaning and laundry. All the never-ending chores. I hope everyone has a great week with lots of productivity. I’m linking to Quilt Schmilt. 

Weekend Update

I haven’t done much of what I intended to do…….it seemed like other stuff kept coming up. I did get some quilting done, but I won’t have pictures until I get them trimmed. Maybe tomorrow. I worked on pillow covers in my spare time. 

My church groups makes what we call lap covers for the local dialysis and oncology centers. They are two layers of fabric—no batting—hemmed and tacked together with crochet thread. We also make pillows that are approximately 12” x 16”. The pillows are very popular with patients who are getting infusions because they can be put under the arm as a cushion. They also make good seat belt cushions for mastectomy patients. The stack above is about 10 of the covers. I do them in batches: I cut a bunch, and then I sew a stack, then turn and press a stack, and so on. Another lady in our group also makes them. We are having a “stuffing event” in August where the youth can come and fill the covers with poly fill, and we will whip stitch them closed. It’s a way for the kids to participate and to get service hours if they need them.  Hope to get about a fifty covers made by August, and the other lady will make at least that many, if not more.

On Saturday, I met a quilt guild friend for lunch and then we went shopping for fat quarters for or upcoming workshop project. This is the project:

We didn’t find fat quarters we wanted, but they did have a batik half-yard bundle we both liked, so we bought it and split the cost. There were 20 half yards, and we cut each one into two fat quarters. 

I have been playing around with mine—putting them in order of darkest to lightest and taking a picture and turning it into gray scale. They are mainly “medium” value, so I pulled a few fat quarters from my stash to add to the mix.

I was surprised I had that many lights. 

Today I will pick this kid up from soccer camp.

I can’t believe how grown up he is getting! And, he is obsessed with soccer. He just got back from the A&M camp, and now he is doing the U of H one. There is a big cardboard cutout at Lowe’s of some Argentinian soccer player, and I’m going to take him over there to get his picture with the cutout. I am pretty sure all of this will also involve a stop at Chick-fil-A. I just hope he doesn’t step on me again with those cleats!

To-Do-List Tuesday 7-9-24

Good morning Tuesday friends! Let me first say thank you to everyone who prayed for me. We got very little hurricane activity here—a little more wind than usual, but not much rain. It was worse north of us, but luckily, it stayed a weak category 1. We will see what the rest of the summer brings. 

As for my to-do list, I had mixed results. I lost some time due to hurricane prep and general lack of motivation, and here are the results.

1) Get income tax papers sorted out and ready to work on. Oh, I tried, I mainly made a lot of paper piles. I need to buckle down on this one.

2) Start on gift baskets for the silent auction at the quilt show and for Lutherfest. I spent way too long trying to figure out what I wanted to do, but I did start on this cookie baker basket.

I want to make potholders and maybe an oven mitt to put in the front. And then, I will wrap it in plastic and put a bow on it. That’s okay, it’s a start.

3) Quilt three more customer quilts. No, I did two.

4) Bind another customer quilt. Yes, and isn’t it pretty?

5) Work on Villa Rosa quilt. No, I didn’t touch it.

6) Work on pink and black polka dot quilt. I did a little, but nothing significant. 

7) More potholders and dish cloths. Yes.

I’m hoping I’ll have more energy and motivation this week. We have a reception at church today. Sandwiches and cold salads. I was going to bring potato salad, but I think others will bring that, so I made some cole slaw. I thought about buying a carton of it from the grocery store, but I resisted the temptation and went ahead and made it from scratch. It’s sitting in the refrigerator right now. That’s all I have planned for this week other than doing a tune up on the riding mower, so I should have time to work on my to-do’s. 

1) Income tax!

2) Quilt three customer quilts.

3) Finish June and July BOM’s.

4) Pink and black polka dot quilt.

5) Villa Rosa quilt.

6) Logging On quilt.

Hopefully my malaise will be gone, and I’ll be back to feeling somewhat energetic. I hope everyone has a great week with lots of productivity. I’m linking to Quilt Schmilt. 

Hurricanes and Other Stuff

I was hoping we could avoid all the hurricane activity; especially since we got nothing last year, but here is the current tracker.

For reference, I live just to the left of the top H on the map. If it stays a Cat 1, we should be okay; if it sits in the gulf and gets stronger, who knows? I have lived on the gulf coast most of my life, the exception being 4 or 5 years in College Station, so it’s nothing new to me, but I don’t look forward to it. I typically don’t evacuate, but our utilities will be turned off if it get close to land which means it will be hot and humid. I will fill the bathtubs with water tomorrow so I have water to flush with and wash myself with. Sometimes I feel like moving, but all four of my grandchildren are here and my 83-year old mother. Oh well, maybe I should check on getting one of the whole-house generators. I have a regular generator, but I have no clue how to hook it up. I think Bill showed me, but I can’t remember. Please pray for me, if you are a prayer warrior, that i don’t get any damage. 

I did make it to the Farmers Market yesterday and bought some fresh veggies. 

The peppers, squash, potatoes, and tomatoes all came from there. I got the green beans from the grocery store. So, so, so good. No wonder I don’t ever lose weight! I like to cook and I like to eat! My neighbor brought me some pollo con calabasa (chicken with squash) she made which I will eat today. 

She puts corn in it, and it’s really good. She is a good cook.

Other than cooking, I have done a little sewing and quilting. I’ll try to post pix tomorrow. I spent most of yesterday running errands and working on the yard. 

I did get the sidewalks blown off after I took this pic. LOL.

Day One Bags

My guild participates in the Day One Bags for foster children who are aging out of the foster care system. The primary goal (I think) is to give each child a nice piece of luggage so they don’t have to carry their belongings in a trash bag. Our local chapter also gifts graduating seniors a quilt, a gift card, and zipper pouches. The guild members donate quilts and zipper pouches. Here are some we donated:

If my memory is correct, we sent 23 quilts this year. Here’s the one I made:

The quilts were distributed at the end of May. I got this in the mail this week.

A thank you letter, with a key chain and a sticker. I put the sticker on my portable machine; the one I take to workshops and retreats.