Tuesday I attached the long green to blue section to the main top. It was a lot easier to do than I anticipated. I suspect it was because I had it oriented correctly in my hands. For the rest of the month I’ll work on Winter Wonderland and Star-A-Day.
This Handwork Tuesday I added a few neutral hexies to this section
and prepped the blue hexies for the next row.
I didn’t get more done as I was corralling my 2 1/2 inch strips and bits. The strips are all pressed so they now fit into the bin. I carefully folded the pile and placed it on the bottom of the bin, the topped it off with the bags and bundles of strips. At some point, I’ll return to the box to sort by color and roll them up.
The pile in the lower left corner of the picture are those bits which are less than 10″ long. At some point I’ll trim them into squares and rectangles, but I need to tackle the shoebox of squares and rectangles – pressing them flat and sorting by color. Once that’s done I think I need another quilt using 2 1/2″ squares and 2 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ rectangles. But first I need to finish Scrappy Bargello, Disappearing Hourglass, and get the binding on Eclipse.
My quilting goals for March start with binding Eclipse. This was on my February list, but I ran out of time.
The quilt of the month is my Disappearing Hourglass. I would love to have it finished by the 16th.
The 2026 Brandon Quilters President Challenge is pillowcases. I’ve had these cut out since 2018 and haven’t got them put together. Now is the time.
While I’m piecing on the machine, I’ll move Riviana forward as my Leader/Ender project.
Handwork Tuesday will continue.
One hoop of redwork – I didn’t realized how far along I was on this panel until I folded it to take this picture.
I have 9 stars cut out, ready to go. I’d love to get 10 stitched for my Star a Day quilt.
On my hexie project, I need to finish the neutral row, add a row of blue hexies then attach it to the center.
4th Saturday BOM
The goal is to get the next block done and attach this section to the first section.
5th Sunday/Monday
This month there’s an “extra” Sunday and Monday. As near as I can tell, I just have this Ribbon Star block to piece then the center star before I can start assembling the quilt.
It’s a lot, but I will be going to a 2 day retreat, so I don’t think it is impossible. But first – I’ve got to make some binding!
First a Handwork Tuesday update. I stitched a few more hexies. I should have been working on my Star-A-Day. I still have a few days to get this month’s star completed.
No, I do not have the border on Eclipse. This is not hard, but I got distracted by the Disappearing Hourglass.
This year’s continuing segment is disappearing blocks. In February I presented the Disappearing Hourglass. My sample blocks used 6″ squares cut from scraps, but I have a 28-piece layer cake that I want to use.
I bought 2 1/2 yards of Grunge in Paper White to use for the background and an inner border and made my first block last night.
I followed the Missouri Star tutorial which mean all my edges are on the bias. I just have to be careful not to stretch the blocks when I’m handling them. This block came out at 11 1/2″.
My final report is that Riviana is being assembled. I made “thousands” of HST as my leader/ender project starting in August 2022. I can’t remember If I finished making them the end of 2023 or 2024. but I knew I had misplaced 60 HST. which put a damper on things. Apparently I’ve made extra HST, as still have enough to finish the quilt. So now I’m using the split 9-patches as my leader/ender. This could take a while.
Eclipse is now ready for borders. I’m still confident I’ll get this quilt finished by the end of the month.
In addition to getting the first ‘wing’ attached to the main body of my hexi quilt, I’ve stitched a few hexies for the next section.
I’m progressing through my February goals. One of my handwork goals was go to get one hoop of stitching done on my Winter Wonderland panel. This past weekend I did 3 and am about halfway through a 4th.
I still need to work on the next block on the Just Takes Two and make a Star for Star A Day. I feel confident I’ll get it all done this month.
I’m a little all over the place this week. In the top left are my Rivanna 9-patch units that I’m building as my leader/ender. The green and white comes from stack of scraps my sister left for me. We are doing an on-going series of Disappearing Blocks at the Quilters By Hearts Desire Meeting and this month is Disappearing Hour Glass.
The pink, lavender and white is Eclipse, 5 yard quilt that I enlarged. I really would like to get it finished this week, but I’m not holding my breath.
The turquoise and gray is the 2nd section of Just Takes Two. It’s hanging out as a reminder to work on it this upcoming 4th Saturday.
Finally in the middle is my hand work hexie project. It doesn’t looks like much now, but I promise it’s going somewhere. – slowly. I have hexies cut that I need to prep for the section I’m working on. It’s actually pined on the wall in the wrong location, but that’s where it fit.
Handwork Tuesday actually started on Monday evening after Bunco. I prepped these blue hexies for the next row — just as soon as I get the neutral row stitched onto the section I’m working.
Tuesday, I stitched this section of my redwork. Time to move the hoop. Since I’ve worked on these two projects, I suppose next week I need to make a star.
On the Studio cleaning front I found my flat surfaces! The box on the sewing table is a bookshelf I need to assemble for the Sunroom, but I need to get the paint cans moved so I have a place for it. But since the flat surfaces are cleared, I can now start working on the Green and Orange Chain of Blossoms. I would love to get it quilted this week.
My first version of the 2025 Brandon Quilters Mystery, Chain of Blossom, is finished. This quilt is on my Brandon Quilters UFO Challenge for 2026. All the fabric came from my stash, thus the design decision on the binding. I think I have a 1 1/2″ wide strip of the gold and maybe a 7″ strip of the blue left.
Chain of Blossoms
Additionally, I finished my Twirling Leaves top and made the backing for it. I am sending this one out to Shelly Pagliai at Prairie Moon Quilts. I’m a head of schedule since my slot is in March.
My sister is visiting for 2 weeks to use the longarm. I think she has a dozen tops ready to quilt. So I plan on spending this week cleaning the quilt studio and cutting hexies. I have hexies cut for yellow and neutral, but I need to cut and prep blues and oranges since I’ve changed how I’m putting the quilt together. Once I’ve got the tables clean, then I’ll work on the my next UFO – the 2nd version of the mystery quilt.
Although I should have spent time working on my Twirling Leaves, I decided to look for my hexie bag. It didn’t turn up after yet another pass through the Quilt Studio, so I headed into the house. I started in the front bedroom. Didn’t find it, but waded through 2 large crates, sorting into trash, donate, put away and to be dealt with. The later ended up in just one small crate about 1/3 the size of the 2 I started with, but no hexie bag.
That meant I needed to dig though the boxes in the other room. There was no sorting this time, just digging and I located it! I haven’t found my hexie punch, but it’s not a priority at the moment.
I’m not sure what I was thinking when I put this away. Many of the outer edge hexies are only stitched to the main body and not each other. I worked on those for a while then decided I need to work in sections instead of the round. Well, at least that’s what I thought tonight. We’ll see how it goes.
I drew on my pattern where I want the first section. In this section each row is one more hexie until there are 22 hexies, then each subsequent row is 2 fewer. It’s a good thing this is a WISP because this one section will take me a while at 12-15 hexies a week.
Tonight I may make a pass looking for the Star-a-Day journal, but then I’ll get back on Twirling Leaves. That deadline is looming.
P.S. I waded through my posts to see if I could find a picture of the hexie journal so I know what I’m looking for. This is the only one I found. With this new knowledge, I made another pass through the Quilt Studio and the front bed room.
Look what I found.
Then as I was making this addition to the post, I thought about the box in the closet in the 2nd bedroom. Not finding it there, I made a quick pass though some of the other boxes in the room — and look what I found.
Star # 114 on 4/8/18 is when I pressed the last star that I’ve made. I only counted the stars that I have sewn to the background. I hope the rest of the stars are in the box of pieces, but that is one goose chase that will have to wait until later today.
I have a number of project which are in Works Slow Progress – simply because I’m not working on them. I also like to make lists and plans which I may or may not follow through with. It’s perfectly OK when it comes to my quilting. Life happens, I get distracted. But I really would like to start to make progress on a few of these. So I have a few ideas.
Tuesday was picked because I have quilt guild meetings and Bunco on Monday’s. Also I enjoy watching TV on Tuesday night. If CBS changes the day the NCIS franchise airs, this day may move. So what am I going to work on on Tuesday? One of 3 projects. My Redwork Winter Wonderland, the current panel I’ve been stitching on forever is shown above. I have 2 more panels to stitch after I finish this one before I can start piecing the top. I started this quilt in 2007. My goal for 2026 is to finish this panel.
Next up for Handwork Tuesday is my Star-A-Day quilt which I started back in September 2014. I just checked and I have 103 stars done (this is a old picture). I would like to get 2 stars done a month. I need to find the journal I started when I started this quilt.
My final Handwork Tuesday project is my Hexi quilt. There’s just one issue I’m not sure where the bag is that it is in. I need to find it sooner than later because I would love to significant progress on it this year and I am demonstrating this a a quilt guild meeting later this year. I started this quilt in April 2014.
I have several BOM which have way more than 12 blocks. I want to take one day a month to simply make progress on these quilts. First up is Just Takes Two. I think there are 29 more blocks, plus the border. I started this in 2012. 
With 77 blocks made I’m just over halfway done with this block a week quilt I started in January 2007. This is Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler.
I want to make every block from Bonnie Hunter’s Addicted to Scrap quilt, then combine it into a single quilt. If I have counted correctly there are 92 blocks and I only have 18 made. I started this project February 2021.
I have quilt guild or Bunco on the first 3 Monday’s a month, so when we have a 5th Monday it’s bonus time. These are some of the blocks from my Star Studded BOM started October 2019. As near as I can tell I just have the center star and maybe one more to go before I can start assembling it. Even if I only work on it the 5th Monday (March, June, August & November), I think I can finish the top by the end of the year.
I hope that Handwork Tuesday, 4th Saturday BOM and 5th Monday Bonus allows me to make progress on some of these Works in Slow Progress. With the exception of Star Studded, I do not anticipate finishing these tops this year. After all I have other quilts I want to finish this year!
