15 Minutes To Stitch 2020 - Week 27

I loved participating in Kate's Life in Pieces 15 Minutes to Stitch in 2019 and am a fan of her blog. She's hosting again for 2020

My 2020 goal is to stitch at least 15-minutes 50% of the days in the year.

• Week 27: 6 of 7 = 86 %
• 120 minutes/day average across 7-days
• June: 27 of 30 = 90 %
• July: 5 of 5 = 100 %
• 2020: 163 of 187 = 87 %

This week started out with two days of work followed by the start of 13-days Staycation. The first vacation days off this year. Happy accident when the A/C for my office suite failed right after the time off started. Next appointment available for Monday to get the unit working again. Luckily the rest of the house is on a different system that was already replaced in the last year. PHEW! Avoiding going upstairs to the office right now unless I need a printout.

Big accomplishments this week include cutting the remaining 9 color batiks for the Honey Bees Quilt Guild monthly 10-inch squares exchange. We started in February with Red, turned in Green in March, but then didn't get any further. I had purchased 12 1.5-yard cuts of fabric in each color because I could not meet the 20 squares requirement for any of the month colors with what was in my stash.

And after reading about the new book "Love Your Creative Space" by Lilo Bowman, I decided to get it. Jumped the gun a little buying two anti-fatigue mats for between my pressing station and cutting table, but feel like I will work it out to have the items that I need within reach. 

While working on the pressing and cutting of  13.5-yards of fabric, I looked up on a Facebook group about EQ8, how to draw over an image of my quilt to get lines for quilting. Here's the approximate version of what I am hoping to accomplish this week:

This is Carolina Moore's Cricut Maker Block of the Week, the Sequel.

And then finally, I am getting to participate in a Bonnie Hunter sew along. The July 1, 2020 one year Leader/Ender Challenge is called Easy Breezy. You can get the pattern for free from her blog post so go and check it out. I did have to draw the blocks in EQ8 to get my head around the cutting instructions; that's something that I do often to be able to own the instruction set of anything that I do. I started stacking what I had sets in the foreground and any additional pieces in baggies in the background for Bonnie's scrap user system.

After over 4-hours today (not straight since I have a puppy that needs fun times outside) cleaning up my smallest scraps, I have 15 kits of the 4" size and 4 of the 6" size. I decided to make both sizes and see what happens. So far, using up my smallest scraps has yielded lots of the smaller size.

Here's the kits in a plastic bin ready to sit by the sewing machine to be worked on as Leaders/Enders.

 

This project setup was a bit of a DrEAMI Squirrel, but when I saw those adorable blocks, I knew that I wanted to make it. I've been itching to have a solid Leaders/Enders project and my scraps are starting to take over several shelves so it's time to tame them. I'm looking forward to seeing where these blocks are in 1-year.

Having those anti-fatigue mats in a few weeks is going to be GREAT!!! We have tile floors here in Florida after 20-years of wall-to-wall carpeting in New Jersey. And I love to walk around barefoot.

Have a great week!

Project Plans in motion:

1. Order Ironing station
2. Items listed based on due date:
1. July 7th: Drop off all of the cut batik squares for the rest of the exchange months
2. July 31st: Patterns By Jen 2020 Color Challenge July Block (2 different backgrounds)
3. Change shoulder strap and add padded pieces for over-shoulder neck pouches
4. More friends/family fabric face filters, inside cotton sheet material and outside cotton fabric
5. Finish Cricut Maker Block of the Week the Sequel (FAL #2)
1. Quilt
2. Square Up
3. Choose Binding, make Binding and Sleeve
4. Make Label
5. Bind with hanging sleeve and Label
6. Hand-sew label side and top, binding corners, and hanging sleeve bottom and sides
6. Make 3 Cafe Press 3-yard quilts for friends during the COVID-19 home-bound (FAL #56, 121, and; 122)
7. QuiltSmart Midi Bag - Sandscapes (FAL #93)
   

What are you working on?

Link-Ups:

• Life in Pieces Week 27 of 2020 - As #10