March 2025 PHD report

We are a few days into April so it's time to look back at what got done last month and post a March PHD report and join the linky party over at Ms P Designs USA.  I appreciate these monthly look backs, especially when I have no finishes.  It helps me remember that I did actually do stuff even though there are no updates to my PHD tracking sheet.

No new starts either, so I'm at least not adding to my UFO list yet. There was some good progress on several projects this month.  

An oldie, but goodie made it back to my active project list in March. On Ringo Lake was the Bonnie Hunter mystery back in 2017. When I last worked on in January of 2019, 28 of the 30 blocks were finished.  The last two blocks were assembled pretty quickly and assembly was started. In an effort to just get this project to finished quilt top, simple sashing rather than Bonnie's pieced sashing is the plan.    

Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter) has been my Rainbow Scrap Challenge project for several years now.  Last year all the yellow and orange blocks were finished. The red blocks are almost done, but I still need a lot of the blue, purple, teal and green.  Since yellow was the color for March, I combined the yellow blocks into bigger blocks for assembly into the quilt. I also continued making more blue blocks.  

My long term leaders and enders project, the Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt (Kevin the Quilter) continued in March, but it switched from making 4 patches to actually starting to assemble the quilt.  I'm not sticking strictly to Kevin's layout, so I wanted to get that going and adjust the total of 4 patches needed as I go along.  There's been good progress on the center of the quilt so far.  

Marble Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs) became a finished quilt top early in the month.  

The April and May blocks were actually finished for the Guild BOM, but I can't show May's blocks till I reveal that color to the guild later this month. April's blocks were pink, it adds a nice spark to all the cool colors already finished.  I'm trying to work ahead a bit just in case life happens and I have trouble getting a given month's block finished.  

After finishing off the May block for the Guild BOM, I wanted to add back a project that needed the blocks pieced. The 2024 Bonnie Hunter Mystery, Old Town, was put aside to keep up with the SAHRR.  It's the one project I had a lot of the pieces cut for, so I pulled out the pieces for step 2 and step 5 to work on the last day of March. I'm almost halfway done with step 5.

Most of my sewing time in the first quarter of 2025 was focused on this year's Stay at Home Round Robin (Quilting Gail). I got the quilt top finished before the quilt parade.  The backing is purchased and washed, but it still needs to be trimmed to size. Fingers crossed this will be my first finish for the year before the end of this month.  

As of the end of March, my progress tracker show four quilts with progress for 2025.  Two projects became quilt tops last month and one more shows good progress.  

So it was a good month on the progress front.  April's focus in the sewing room is to work on moving a couple of quilts towards finished. We'll see how that works out.  

To Do List for the Week of 04/01/2025

March was a pretty productive month, fingers crossed April is as well.  I did pretty well with my last to do list for March. 

To Do List for 03/25/2025

1.  2025 Guild BOM: Finish May blocks ✔

2.  2025 SAHRR: Trim backing - progress

3.  On Ringo Lake: Make 2 blocks, start quilt assembly ✔

4.  Wild and Goosey: Making blue blocks ✔

5.  Summer Scrap Quilt:  Leaders and enders ✔

Four out of five is definitely not a bad week.  Progress has been slow, but steady.  I'm hoping for more of the same for this week's to do list. 

To Do List for 04/01/2025

1.  2025 SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Trim backing, start prepping quilt top

I was able to get the backing with 25% off on Saturday. It's got both the green and the blue, so works well with the quilt top. It's been washed, but needs to be pressed before it's trimmed to size.  I'd like to get this project sent out for quilting before mid month, so I'll start prepping the quilt once the backing is ready.  

2. On Ringo Lake (Bonnie Hunter): Finish quilt assembly, start borders

Just one more row to add and the two halves can be sewn together. I'm happy with how this project is coming together. It feels good to get another of my older projects close to being a finished quilt top. 

3.  Kate's Choice: Learn to use walking foot and practice quilting

  

I finished the blocks for this sampler in August of last year.  One of goals the last couple of years has been to learn to quilt.  Trudy, who has done such a wonderful job with my quilts the last 10 plus years, is retiring from the quilting for others business sometime this year. She's going to quilt the 2025 SAHRR for me, but that's probably the last one she'll do.  So it's definitely time for me to learn.  I have several smaller quilt tops intended for donation that will look perfectly fine with straight line quilting.  So I'm going to start the learning process with figuring out how to use my walking foot.  I have one, I've just never used it. Getting the quilting going on the Kate's Choice blocks is my Chookshed Challenge project for April.  

4.  2025 Guild BOM: Cut fabrics for the June blocks

I'm trying to work ahead on this project so that if life happens, I'm still ready to go, plus it will help give me a head start on getting the quilt assembled to show in December/January.  

5.  Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Finish blue, start teal blocks

I'll probably need to cut some more teal scraps, there aren't very many left in the bag from last year.   

6.  Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt (Kevin the Quilter): Continue as leaders and enders. 

Looks like I'm back to a longer list this week.  We'll see how well I do at getting it all checked off.  

Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.  

Moving on with the Quilt Plan

It was a pretty low key weekend here. The trees seemed to have greened up overnight. And the spring storms have definitely started up.  Nothing too severe yet, thankfully, as we really need the rain.  

The Stay At Home Round Robin quilt had been my focus for most of first quarter. Now that it's a finished quilt top it was time to find something else to work on.  I signed up to play along with the Chookshed Challenge over at Dreamworthy Quilts this year, but to date haven't done a really great job of doing much with those projects.  For March, the 2017 Bonnie Hunter Mystery, On Ringo Lake, was my pick to work on. This month I actually made some progress on this challenge. 

The parts for two more blocks were cut and those were assembled.  I decided against Bonnie's pieced sashing and instead went with a simple sashing with corner stones.  That makes a cool secondary pattern. I'm happy with how it's coming together.  The last row is partially assembled.  By the end of today all the rows should be assembled and I'll have made a start on the borders. This should be a finished quilt top before the end of April. It does feel good to make some progress on one of my older projects.  

Linking up with the March Chookshed Challenge, Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.   

Stitching Stuff: Week 13 of 2025

 

It was a really good week on the progress front, actually March has been a pretty good month in the sewing room. My stats from this week attest to that.  

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/March = 29/29 days
• 15 minute days/2025 = 83/88 days
• Success rate = 94.32%

So it was a good week.  Just two days left in the month, but looking back it was a good one.  I have lots of quilt tops finished, now to get those moved to completely finished quilts.

Did you have a good week in the sewing room?   

1. Melissa G 2. Frédérique 3. Julie in GA 4. Karen

5. DonnaleeQ 6. Quilting Gail 7. Gretchen 8. Bonnie in Va

9. Andrée at Quilting & Learning 10. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting 11. Marsha's Spot

Powered by... Mister Linky's Magical Widgets.

To Do List for the Week of 03/25/2025

This year seems to be moving ahead at light speed, when usually the first few months of the year usually seem to go more slowly. This is the last to do list for March.  I'm not ready for April. It's coming regardless, so no point in bemoaning. At least I did pretty well at getting last week's to do list checked off.  

To Do List for 03/18/2025

1.  2025 SAHRR: Finish borders ✔

2.  Guild BOM: Start May blocks ✔

3.  Wild and Goosey: Continue making blue blocks ✔

4.  Summery Scrap Quilt: Continue as leaders and enders ✔

Last week's list was pretty short. My focus was on getting the 2025 SAHRR to finished quilt top and that happened.  So it was a really good week.  

The problem with finishing a project you've been focused on to the exclusion of the other stuff in your sewing room is then deciding what you pull out to work on in it's place. I may have a plan, we'll see how it goes with this week's list. 

To Do List for 03/25/2025

1.  2025 Guild BOM: Finish May blocks

My version of the guild BOM is scrappy. I got lucky and found a number of 1.5" white on white strips in my scrap bins to use for the sawtooth star border blocks.  Made it much quicker to cut all the pieces I need for May's blocks.  

2. 2025 SAHRR (Quilting Gail):  Trim backing

I found a wide backing at the local quilt shop, they have a 25% off sale on Saturday.  So I'll pick that up  then and get it trimmed up to fit the quilt. 

3.  On Ringo Lake (Bonnie Hunter): Make 2 blocks, start quilt assembly

I just need to make 8 of the corner units to have enough to finish off the 2 blocks.  I've got the final layout worked out. I still need to cut the sashing strips and corner stones. I'm hoping to make some progress on assembly before the week is done. 

4. Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Continue making blue blocks

I've made good progress on the blue set of blocks. I should probably count and see where I'm at.  

5. Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt (Kevin the Quilter): Continue as leaders and enders

I'm close on the number of 4-patch blocks needed to finish the quilt.  I decided to start assembling the parts of the quilt, the center requires 9 16 patch blocks made from the 4 patch blocks.  If I need more 4 patches of either color, I'll make them as I go along. I don't want to make more than I need, so this seems to be the best approach to keep moving towards a finish on this one.  

It's a bit longer of a list, but with no due dates on anything, I can relax and make progress on each item.  Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.