July PHD Report

I don't really have much to report for my PHD progress. I am making progress on the projects I started this year, with 2.5 finishes for the month, but didn't mark anything off of my UFO list this month.

Linking with Ms. P for PHD Progress Report

Why 2.5 finishes? Because I have quilted Spooky & Sweet and am working on the binding. I have one long side sewn down so far. My daughter has claimed this quilt and picked the Moon Flower quilting design for it. 

Bedford Tiles is still in progress. I had been making individual blocks, but decided it would be faster to sew them in chunks. So I pressed rows one and two and got all of them sewn together. I don't know if it is really faster, but it seems like it, particularly because I only have to make sure one thing is going the right direction. 

As far as the remaining projects, I haven't worked on the tessellations quilt at all. I'm not sure it will get done this year because I'm not sure there's enough fabric there to make a quilt that is a usable size even though I started with more than the amount called for.

I also haven't worked on the Batesville BOM. This is the one I'm dragging my feet on the most. I don't particularly like the quilt (it was started in 2007) and the setting is somewhat complicated. It's pictured in the postcard below, middle row, right side quilt, only with 12 blocks instead of nine. I'll probably make it my OMG soon, just to force progress. 

The RSC has been making progress all along. August's color is orange, and that's all I have left to make. I will then add some sashing and skinny borders. I'm planning to make a pieced backing too. I will probably machine bind it since this is one that is definitely meant to use. That should speed things up. Here's a partial picture. My design wall is behind my longarm and I was dodging the running machine trying to get the picture.

I have to quilt and bind the Swiss Star quilt. Everything is ready; I just need open time on the longarm. My daughter has also selected everything for this one and it will be for her. I will hand bind this one.

That leaves a clothing item and making selvedge yarn. I'm a bit scared to do the clothing item. I'm already hard to fit and my weight isn't where I'd like it to be. I have been sporadically working on the selvedge yarn. The selvedges are like bunnies (and scraps) though--you use a bunch and it seems like there's even more in the bin than there was before you started! 

Of course I've worked on more quilts too. First up is Barb's Santa quilt. I lobbied for the Christmas quilting design and she agreed. 

Next is Shirley's string quilt. She used broadcloth for the foundation, so it was pretty heavy. She requested Lei for the quilting and it looks great! 
Then I started quilting Jeri's quilts. She picked Modern Organic for her Picnic quilt (pattern by Bre T).
I quilted West Wind on her Falling quilt (Villa Rosa postcard by Running Doe Quilts).
I am working on machine binding Jeri's quilts (I still have one more of hers left to quilt). 

I quilted Soho on Ann K.'s quilt and attached the binding to the front. These blocks were colored with Sharpies. I don't have any details on that. 
In other news, I'm pretty sure I have poison ivy again. Ugh. Not as bad this time. It's right above where my protective gardening sleeves hit. We weeded the upper gardens and a few days later, I had what I thought were bug bites. Then it started spreading. Same as last time.  Once again, I'm fairly certain we didn't pull any poison ivy, so I'm not sure where it's coming from. I washed my gardening sleeves and got new gloves. We were all touching the same things and I'm the only one affected (again).

Maybe creatures spread it? We are always cautious when we see the fawn because we know the mom is nearby and could attack if feeling threatened.
Stop back tomorrow and link up your August OMG. Which one of my PHD projects do you think I will choose as my goal?


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July One Monthly Goal Finish Link Up

 It's time to share your progress for the month.

This link up will remain open until July 31 at 11:55 pm EST.

Want to see everyone's goals? Check out the July goal page.

My goal this month was to quilt my Churn, Churn, Churn mini quilt. I wanted to custom quilt it, and I did. Typically I have a plan for what I am going to quilt prior to starting. I did not do that this time. 

I used four colors of Glide thread (Monarch, Cornflower, Mars, and Space) and a Frankenbatting remnant of Pellon Bamboo batting. The blue thread didn't match as well as I'd hoped. It looks sort of green against my fabric.

I did a combination of FMQ and ruler work. There are definitely things I would have done differently. I thought I was going to do the pebbling in all the blue, but I was really tired after doing the outside, so I did quicker things on the inside. In retrospect, I would have done the coils on the outside and the pebbles on the inner parts. I probably should have redone the corner coils because they are kind of sloppy. 

And I made some big errors in my crosshatch considering that I used a ruler, but I was tired and my back was killing me, so I left it. 

I tried a boxy quilting in the red that turned out pretty well. I know that's one of the more basic FMQ patterns, but I've never tried it by hand before.

I finished sewing down the binding yesterday morning! I didn't think I'd get it done in time.
For the backing, I sewed together a bunch of red charms I received years ago from an international swap. I thought I had centered the top with the backing, but as you can see, it was a bit off. Luckily I did not run out of backing fabric! 
  

Now it's your turn to share your finish. Add your link and then go visit other linkers and make new friends.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
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Teal/Aqua RSC Block Two

I've finished my second planned Teal RSC block. I thought this scrap bin had tons of this color. Nope. I barely had enough to make a block (hence the charm square in the central portion which I probably should have cut into smaller pieces). Much of the fabric remaining in this bin reads more green than aqua to me and that was surprising. 

Free pattern available from mmm quilts.
Linking with So Scrappy RSC

Once it's the orange month, I'll have all my blocks and can start assembling the quilt top. I should probably start planning the backing now.

I've been able to do a bit more sewing this week. I made some napkins for my daughter using this giraffe fabric from my stash.

I also knitted three dish scrubbies for her. Only two are pictured since I made the third one in the car on the way up to her house last weekend.

I also made this little guy. It's part of Fat Quarter Shop's Spooky & Sweet pattern. I'm hoping to have the rest of the top assembled by the end of the week.

I've been very busy with the quilting and the bookings are rolling in. It almost feels like the Christmas rush although it's way early for that. 

I quilted a loopy meander on Jess's quilt. She had me trim her quilt. The backing is minky. I'm still finding little black fluffs everywhere.

Cindy chose Flirtatious for her Christmas Wreaths quilt.


She picked Primrose Stipple for her Laura quilt. This one is based on Little House on the Prairie. It's hard to see the quilting on this one.
Cindy also brought me two quilts she labeled as "Falls in Town". She selected Windswept for both. The first one is the larger version.
And the second is the smaller version.
Trudy picked In the Swirls for her quilt.

Like I mentioned above, we went to see my daughter on Saturday. We took her to IKEA, Lowes, and Walmart to pick up odds and ends and groceries. It's been really expensive to get her set up in her room she's renting. 

Speaking of expensive, I thought I'd like to get an Apple Pencil while they were on sale ($80, not too bad) because I'd like to learn to use Procreate ($13, also not too bad). I've been trying to learn all different softwares and do things that scare me this year. So far I've taken a Pro-Stitcher Designer course for Modern Textiles, I've signed up with Karlee Porter to do a class this fall, I went to QuiltCon, I took Alderwood Studio's pattern writing class and learned how to use Affinity Designer, I entered quilts in IHQS and the fair, I watched a technical editing roundtable and started offering quilt pattern technical editing, I went to h&h americas and started an Etsy fabric shop, and changed my business to an LLC. Whew! That is a lot. I'm glad I made the list so that I could see everything I've done this year.

Let's get back on task here. It turns out my current iPad is too old to support the Pencil. It's so old it has a home button (which is starting to fail, but I'm stubborn and will use something until it is completely non-functional unless it is replaced by my family before I give in). So that led to my husband deciding to buy me a new iPad and the upgraded Pencil, which led to needing a case and screen protector. My birthday is this weekend, so I guess this is my extravagant birthday present for my milestone birthday. Good thing all these quilts are coming in!

My son has taken over house-sitting duties for my neighbor since my daughter has moved. He's finishing up his summer college classes this week. He told me it's been a stressful summer. And treated himself to some video game system that is coming from Japan to make himself feel better. On my tab of course since it required a credit card and he has yet to give me cash to reimburse me. He'll start regular school on the 7th. Did I ever mention that he and his friends had a PowerPoint party? They each created a 15-minute+ PowerPoint slide deck to present to their friends. 🤣

I was joking about needing our passports and realized that his was probably expired since young kid ones expire sooner than adult ones. I dug them out to check and he had about a month left. So we went and got a new one ordered on Friday. More money, but the guy at the PO took a very flattering picture of my son. We were near the local jeweler and I mentioned that I needed to get the prongs redone on my wedding ring, so we dropped that off too. I feel naked without my ring. I hope they get it back to me soon. The jeweler said six prongs need to be fixed. I think it only has six, or maybe eight? You'd think I'd know this after wearing it for almost 30 years. LOL. I've been putting this off for about five years, so I'm lucky I didn't lose my stone.

One highlight for me right now is that one of our favorite shows--Claim to Fame--is back on the air. We have a lot of fun trying to figure out who each person is while avoiding spoilers online. We had to coordinate with my daughter to try to stream the latest episode at the same time so we could discuss it through text. 

I also stumbled across a show that I've been enjoying immensely--My Name is Gabriel. It's a Korean show available on Hulu. I have to pay close attention to read all the subtitles. The premise is that well-known Korean stars spend 72 hours in another country, assuming someone else's life. They have to figure out who they are and live as the person. The first few episodes feature Park Bo-gum and Park Myung-soo. Bo-gum's episodes are very touching and Myung-soo's are funny, so it's a great mix. 

A surprise last night on our evening walk was discovering that we have a flock of chimney swifts in our neighborhood. Our volunteer pumpkin patch has produced one pumpkin, which is fully ripe. The rabbits or squirrels or deer or whatever eat most of the blossoms off the plants (including my zucchini 😫).

I've gotten rather lengthy here. If you've made it this far, thanks. I'll be back tomorrow with the July OMG Finish Link Up in which my Churn, Churn, Churn mini will make an appearance.

Linking with My Quilt Infatuation, Quiltery, and Alycia Quilts.

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Teal/Aqua RSC Block One

I was a bit worried I wouldn't have anything to share this week. I managed to pull off a little eleventh-hour stitching and I've finished one of my two planned RSC blocks for the month. This one is the light version. I'll be working on a darker version next. 

Linking with So Scrappy RSC.
This block pattern is available from mmm quilts.

I also got two more Bedford Tiles blocks done, for a total of 3/20 completed. 

I got a few quilts done. The first one belongs to Sara and we went with Doing Doughnuts for the design. This picture almost looks like black and white. LOL.

I quilted and bound one for Hannah, but I can't share yet. This is a bit of the back. She picked Seuss Trees for the design.

Keetah wanted a Minnie Mouse pattern on her Minnie Mouse quilt. I found one called Mouse Ears with Bows Flipped. I used Glide Grapefruit for the thread.

Deb picked Stipple for her hand-pieced quilt.

We decided on Rosemary for Deb's other quilt.

We had a small garden harvest...green beans (my husband says this is probably all we'll get since the plants are so stunted), a few tomatoes, coolapenos, and random peppers from the "bell pepper assortment".

We got my daughter moved into her new place on Saturday. It's weird not having her here. We did get to talk to her last night (most of the time it's just texting). We'll probably head back up there over the weekend to bring her a few things and take her to get other things she needs.

Linking with Quiltery, My Quilt Infatuation, and Alycia Quilts.


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Fair Results

I picked up my quilts from the fair on Sunday. In addition to the ribbons, I also won $4. It was free to enter them. We did go to the fair last Wednesday afternoon (we were told it was free before 4 pm but it was not) to look at them and a few animals--we walked through the rabbit and pigeon barn and of course we had to see the chickens. The meat chickens made me very sad. There were some pretty cool types of pet (hopefully) chickens on display. I found some of them kind of terrifying. Anyway, here are the pieces, their ribbons, and the judge's comments.






There were three Grand Champion quilts. One was in the made by kids category. The other two were both Christmas-themed quilts, both with edge-to-edge quilting. I'm not sure what the criteria was to be chosen as the winner. There was a really well done, elaborate, paper pieced lion with fully custom quilting that my art quilt beat. I would have chosen the lion to place much better than it did.

I got a few quilts completed. First up is one that belongs to my small quilt guild. I quilted it with Doing Doughnuts in an alternate setup.

Next is Irene's quilt, quilted with Boho Boxes. She was visiting from England; how fun is that?

Finally, Jeni's quilt. She won my quilting prize from the Malted Mystery QAL. She sent me a sampler made with Friends (the TV show) fabric and requested Bean Sprout quilting with lavender thread.


I picked and purchased my fabrics for the next Meadow Mist mystery quilt, the Marble mystery. I chose a backing fabric from my stash and purchased solids for the front. The background fabric will be the Kona Bone and my other colors are Kona Bellini, Mango, Regatta, and Leaf. I'll use the remaining backing fabric to bind. 

I've done very little sewing lately. I've been struggling a bit (or a lot, depending on the day) with my daughter's impending departure for her new job. It was very demoralizing at first to find out that she can't afford anywhere safe to live on her own. We started looking for roommates. The first viewing we had set up fell through. We found another one that looked promising but was at the very top of what she can afford. We went and looked on Monday and weren't sure the woman was going to rent it to her. It is a new construction and  includes garage parking. The renter gets a furnished bedroom, a shared bath, and access to the laundry room and the main floor. Later that evening, it seemed that the lease will be extended to her and she can move in this weekend--her new job starts Monday. I know this whole thing will be a good experience for her, but this mom is not handling it very well. I wish her job wasn't over an hour away.

So. Here is my sole piece of sewing over the past week. It is one of the blocks to my Bedford Tiles quilt. Only 19 more to go.

Send positive thoughts my way. I know many of you have already been here before and I'll be okay eventually. In the meantime, I'll be a grieving, anxious, nervous wreck (in secret as much as possible so I don't spike her anxiety).

Linking with My Quilt Infatuation, From Bolt to Beauty, Alycia Quilts, and Quiltery.
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