June To-Do

Here's how my design wall looks on this first day of June. The Patchwork Palooza is still pinned up on the left hand side, waiting for a backing to be made and then for some sandwiching and quilting. The Six by Six quilt is taking up the most space as I work towards finishing it in time for the BAMQ UFO Challenge.Pinned on top of the Patchwork Palooza is my finished Kawandii which needs a hanging sleeve to be added, and the Mosaic table runner top, which needs a backing and then quilting. In the foreground is a pile of recently completed quilts that haven't been labeled. I was about to put them in to my storage closet and realized I needed to take care of that first.

Note: the use of 🥏👽  by a project name indicates that it's on the 2026 UFO Finishes challenge list of six projects that I committed to finishing at the beginning of the year (more on that list later). Note, this is not the same list as the UFO Challenge for BAMQ, that UFO will have this next to it on the list:🌀🌐  

QUILTS

Design & Begin

Pantone Project - work on an overall design, either in EQ8 or up on the design wall.

Lupine & Laughter Mystery Quilt - keep making units following the clue instructions

BAMQ BOM - make monthly blocks of varying sizes through the year.

Continue Assembly

Patchwork Palooza - Decide on borders, make backing & binding

Keep working on Sour Grass Grace from Jane Sassaman class.

Old Town Mystery Quilt - make a backing & binding, decide on whether to have it quilted

AG Stamp Quilt - continue to make more blocks using the final group of fussy-cut stamp block centers from Tula Pink fabrics.

Continue the piecing of Selvedge Candy (maybe the name) quilt originally designed for the 2025 MQG challenge.

🥏👽 Sew the last 6 columns and sashing together of the 2023  Temperature Quilt together to make the quilt top.

Mini QCR Pumpkins table runner- make more blocks and assemble, quilt, finish.

🌀🌐 David Owen Hastings class piece, make more blocks, assemble into quilt top, quilt, finish🥏👽 

                                      

Quilting

🥏👽 Bohemian Wife -  Sandwich this and start quilting it🌀🌐 

Final Steps 

🌀🌐 Five by Five quilt, Add binding and label.

🥏👽 Bending the Calendar - Cut up? Re-arrange? Embellish?🌀🌐 

HANDWORK/BAG/CLOTHING PROJECTS 

Make a Cotton Candy pouch for myself.

Make a Charlie's Aunt wool purse for myself, first felt the wool from Pendleton Mill.

Toned-Down Circle Sampler - now that I have the appropriately sized grey background felt, arrange and appliqué the circles, start embroidering.

Y.E.S. Coat - continue making pieces/blocks. assemble on foundation, cut out lining pieces from the fabric that I dyed

Snake In The Garden - Finish hand stitching -  🌀🌐

Body Pillow-knit cotton pillowcase - 🌀🌐 

Quilted Dog Jacket for Meg - 🌀🌐  

Hey! This Is All Finished!

  Ocean Effect for the BAMQ Challenge Modern Art to Modern Quilt display

Made for the BAMQ library display for The Wizard of Oz

Well...how about that? Two months in a row with some actual finishing happened. Hope I can continue to keep up the forward progress in June!

Jubilant June

Welcome to Jubilant June, well I hope it will be at least somewhat Jubilant (feeling or expressing great joy).  The monthly marker picture above was made out of the combination of two of the pictures I took during May and several editing steps in two apps.

I started out with this picture of the almost completed 6x6 quilt.

I transformed the picture in the app Percolator.

And then I combined it with this picture of of our Angel's Trumpet tree.

Here is my 1sE video for the month, one second of every day of the month of May.

 Monthly I-Did List for May

1. I finished Ocean Effect for the BAMQ exhibit at the SMCF and turned it in
2. I started and finished a small quilt for the BAMQ exhibit at the San Mateo Library
3. I made some more Mosaic blocks at Sew Day and at home too.
4. I finished piecing the Mosaic table runner.
5. I made four Community Giving blocks.
6. I updated my Fabric Tracker and kept it updated during the month
7. I assembled, pieced together , made a backing and then sandwiched and quilted my Six by Six quilt for the BAMQ UFO Challenge.

I got a surprising amount done this month, including going to both the Sew Day and meeting for BAMQ,  had a great Mother's Day with family, kept going to the gym (yay me!), did a whole lot of gardening (see Flower Friday post), starting on weekly PT for my right wrist which is really helping and I'm feeling silly for putting it off, Here's to keeping up the good momentum into June.

May Cornucopia

May was no doubt filled with all sorts of flowers and at least several lovely days spent entirely outside. Then there was the time spent inside, online reading, learning and enjoying. That's what this list is, hope you find something useful or interesting here too.

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If you're looking for a 100 Day project, this free 100 Day Stitch Book project looks like a good one to try out. I love the super clever assembly of the stitched pages into a book.

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The great annual event, Index Card A Day, starts tomorrow. This is Daisy Yellow's 16th year running this challenge.

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The movie, Dust Bunny is one of the most original ideas I've seen onscreen in a long time. It truly made me wonder how it ever got green-lit, but it is as if Roald Dahl and Tim Burton got to make their own version of The Professional. Truly beautiful set design and costumes as well.

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This link to an accessible database of all 5,000 episodes of Sir Richard Attenborough's nature tv show episodes is really something. What an amazing collection and resource.

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I've been going to PT lately for my right wrist, so I was really happy to see a self hand massage video from quilter Heidi Parkes. It's great information, and wow, does this massage really feel nice.

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Two of my favorite comedians have HBO specials (a big deal in the comedy world), and I'm unreasonably pleased for both of them. Josh Johnson, and Chris Fleming. Really worth a watch, especially if you need a good laugh.

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Great books read this month included, the audio book version of Hamnet read by the now Oscar winning actress, Jessie Buckley who played the main character of Agnes in the movie version, it literally made me cry while I was driving.  Also the story of Cinderella retold from the "evil stepmother's" POV, Lady Tremaine was very very good. And in non-fiction, We The People: A History of the U.S. Constitution by Jill Lepore is terribly interesting and so easy to read for a non-lawyer, I'm almost done reading it and I feel like I've learned so much.

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I listen to a lot of podcasts, and I've been enjoying Conspiracy, She Wrote. It's an excellent breakdown of current conspiracies that involve or feature women. Sci Fi writer and essayist, Ursula K. LeGuin's blog has been turned into a podcast, In Your Spare Time, All of the various posts are read by all sorts of people. 

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6x6 Diagonal

 

Time for more quilting to get done on the 6x6 quilt. The back shows the square grid that I've done following the blocks of the front of the quilt.

I'm going diagonal in one direction over the whole quilt. Using the Hera Marker and ruler to keep my quilting line straight.

The next quilting is going well, but my machine is acting up. Sometimes the walking foot isn't engaging, and the feed dog don't seem to work correctly so the stitches get way too small. I think I might switch it out for my old one to get it finished.

Here's how it looks with the diagonals quilted in just one direction. I think I might do the reverse diagonal to finish the quilting off.

Flower Friday for May

 Well, as it's still May, it is definitely time for a 🏵🌹🌻💐Flower Friday!🏵🌹🌻💐

I'm glad I got this picture of this lovely shade of Gerbera Daisy as the deer ate it that very night.

I saw this plant in a FFA (Future Farmers of America) garden next door to my mom's place. It looks like snapdragons or maybe fuchsia but it is Autumn Sage "Salvia  'Shell Dancer'"

 

My Lenten Rose (Hellebore) which has been changing colors, the outer "petals" are sepals which are leaves, so they do tend to get green.

The Columbines that self-sow every year are a pretty color combination this time.

The Globemaster alliums bloomed again, but they were not even close to advertised 1.5 - 3' high stems.

The Jerusalem sage is really taking over, I promised to divide and dig it up so it's not blocking the path once the blooms are done.

The Watsonia blooms are lovely this year, but this time it is pink instead of white?

This color combination on the Kangaroo Paws really gets me.

Gerbera Daisy, another one I got a picture of before the deer discovered them.

A Lion's Ear blooming outside a restaurant in Redwood City, memo to me, try growing this one.

A Minaret flower, related to the one above, such an interesting structure.

The Pomegranate tree was pruned a whole lot earlier this year so there are A LOT of blooms.

A Lacecap Hydrangea blooming outside a restaurant in San Jose that caught my eye. I wish I could grow these in my garden but they take too much water.

The poison tree (Angel's Trumpet) has been cut back so many times this year, but it Keeps Growing Back. The flowers smell so good after it rains.

And lastly, a new plant that I'm growing, a Silver Sage 'Salvia Argentea'. 

That's definitely enough flowers for now!

6x6 Anchor Quilting

 

Time to get this quilt sandwich set up on the sewing machine. I've got the right thread colors in the top (orange) and bottom (lime green), the walking foot is on, a new needle is installed, the surrounding surfaces are cleared off and flat.

Starting with the center vertical line going mostly along the block edges. Not quite in-the-ditch, but close to that.

In some cases, the vertical line doesn't carry on continuously, so time for some Hera marking to get from point A to point B.

I marked as I went down each line, using my wonderful American Vantage point turner/Hera marker that friend Jaye gave me. It makes a really good visible line in both prints and solids. Very easy to follow while quilting.

Here's how it's looking after quilting both vertical and horizontal 4" spaced out lines. I think I might go on the diagonal now to add interest. Or maybe just split up the squares into 2" spacing vertically and horizontally.