October 2025 PHD Report

Hard to believe there are just two months left in 2025.  It's been a busy year in and out of the sewing room.  The summer was mostly out, I'm hoping fall and winter are mostly in.  Since October is over it's time to assess where I'm at on my PHD report and link up with the October PHD report over at Ms. P Designs.  

My PHD report isn't looking great this year. Only one finish back in May. There was one new start in October, the Meadow Mist Designs 2026 Mystery quilt along. That one has been on the quilt plan all year, so it wasn't a surprise.  I keep saying that I need to focus on finishes, but I've been more focused on my Guild sewing projects which have pretty hard deadlines.  There is some comfort in knowing I've made good progress on some of my UFOs, even if they haven't moved to finished quilts yet. 

The Butterfly Medallion embroidery project saw lots of progress while we were on vacation last month. 

 I've made a start on the 4th diagonal row. The greenery at one end is all finished and I made a start on the next butterfly.  I'm sure this project will see more progress as the holidays are coming up.  

The green blocks needed for the corners of Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter) have been the focus for several months. 

The plan is to have really dark green blocks in the corners with lighter/brighter green blocks in the next diagonal row.  I've been focusing on finishing up the dark green blocks recently. I didn't make very much progress in October, just two more of the 3.5" blocks.  Hopefully I'll do better in November.  

Another six blocks were added to Old Town, the 2024 Bonnie Hunter Mystery.  

Just two blocks left to make.  There will be pieced sashing between the blocks and those are all almost assembled.  The goal is to get this project to finished quilt top before the first clue for the 2025 mystery comes out. Since Bonnie is putting the first clue out a bit earlier than typical, I'll be cutting it close.  

The 2025 Guild BOM is coming to an close. The December block to be shown at the November meeting is done.  I've started assembling the rows, minus the December block. 

I've decided to add in the December block and just show it as part of the finished quilt top at the November meeting. That's just 2 weeks off, so I need to get busy!  

The new project this month is the Magnificent Mystery from Meadow Mist Designs. The clue with all the cutting instructions came out in August, the piecing clues didn't start until September. 

I finally cut the pieces for the September and October clues.  The November clue will come out this Thursday, so I'm a behind by a good bit. Hopefully I can get caught up pretty quickly. This mystery will run into April or May of next year, so it's not a project that has to be completed this year.  

My project tracker doesn't show a lot of progress, but there's been some since the last update in June. 

The blocks that were finished for the 2025 Guild BOM and the start of the new mystery quilt along are the only updates. My focus the next month will be finishing up the 2025 Guild BOM and getting started on the 2026 Guild BOM.  So it's looking like finishes won't be in the cards for this year. 

To Do List for the Week of 11/04/2025

How are you dealing with the week days post time change (for those that live in the US where you fall back this time of year)?  I was awake at 4 this morning, I've been getting up a bit after 5 the last week to mesh with Grad Girl's schedule.  So I was right on time.

Other than dealing with Houston and Dallas traffic, the drive home yesterday was uneventful. It was just long.  I'm already missing my girl and the cat. We'll see them for Thanksgiving and Christmas, so I'll get my hugs and pets in then.  

I didn't post a To Do List last week, partly because of computer issues and partly just not being on my regular schedule.  My last to do list is from October.  

To Do List for 10/21/2025

1. 2025 Guild BOM: Continue to assemble quilt top ✔   

2. 2026 Guild BOM: Start first block - progress

3. Old Town: Finish block assembly ✔

4. Magnificent Mystery: Cut fabrics, start Sept/Oct clues - progress 

5. Wild and Goosey: Continue assembly of green blocks ✔

Not bad progress for a couple of weeks.  I did struggle a bit while I was in Texas.  Though Grad Girl has a craft room, it's not fully set up.  We did a couple of runs to pick up some supplies, but it still wasn't an ideal set up.  Even so I did get in some good afternoons of stitching time.  

Now that I'm home, there are chores to catch up on. But I am hoping to get back to my regular stitching time pretty quickly.  This week's list will look pretty much the same as last week's. 

To Do List for 11/4/2025

1. 2025 Guild BOM: Continue quilt top assembly

Other than adding in the December block, which I'm still contemplating doing, all the sashing pieces are added and as much as possible is stitched together. Next step is to work on stitching the pieced sawtooth star borders together.  

2.  2026 Guild BOM: Start first block

Before I left for Texas, all the fabrics were pressed. I just need to start cutting the pieces for the first block.  Hopefully that will happen this week.  

3.  Old Town (Bonnie Hunter): Finish sashing pieces, start assembly

The blocks are finally finished. All that's left is to finish the sashing pieces and assembly of the quilt can start. That's the plan for late night sew this week. 

4. Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Start Sept/Oct clues

 

The fabrics were pressed and the pieces cut for the September and October clues before I left for Texas. I just never got around to starting the assembly process since I was focused on getting Old Town moved along. This should also see some progress during late night sew. 

5.  Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Continue making green blocks

I didn't get much done on this project while I was in Texas, so I'm hoping to hit it strong in November and get all the green blocks finished.  

6.  Lupine and Laughter (Bonnie Hunter): Pick fabrics for the 2025 mystery.  

Bonnie posted the fabric requirements for this year's mystery on 10/24. A bit earlier than usual.  Purple, pink and ice blue with neutrals.  Do I stick with her colors or go rouge?  I'm pretty sure I'm going to start with 75% of the blocks, I prefer a rectangular versus square quilt.  It's always fun picking fabrics for a new project.  

That's my list for this week.  You can see the other lists over at To Do Tuesday hosted by The Quilt Schmilt.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 44 of 2025

 

The blog has been pretty much radio silent this week. First off, I've been visiting Grad Girl for the week and though I've been sewing, she doesn't have a design wall and Queenie pretty much pounces on anything I put down on the bed to photograph. But probably the more scary reason is the computer went wonky on Monday. It's still not running properly, most of the time I've been able to get to my email and read blogs, but not all the time.  I've been backing up files and emailing critical files to myself so if it crashes again, I'm not completely cut off from files I need, like the guild BOM finishing instructions.  I'm posting late this morning because I couldn't get to the blog last night. My computer is probably going to get a spa day once I'm home.  

Since the computer was wonky and Grad Girl was working during the week, it wasn't hard to get in my stitching time this week. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Oct = 31/31/days
• 15 minute days/2025 =265/305 days
• Success rate = 86.69%

It was a good week and a good end to October.  I don't know if I can get back to over 90% by the end of the year, but I'm hoping to get close. 

No stash management, other than I pulled some fabrics for Grad Girl to make some Christmas gifts. 

Did you get a chance to stitch this week? 

Happy Halloween

 

Photo Play: September 2025

 After dealing with computer problems this week, I was glad to be able to sit down and go through my September photos. Not sure what the issue was with the computer but it finally recovered after a hard shut down and reboot. First thing I did after the reboot was to back up everything to an external drive and email myself some files (mainly guild BOM instructions) that would be disappointing if I didn't have access too.  

September was another busy month.  The first week of the month we moved Grad Girl (still need to come up with her new blog moniker).  That took a week and then I stayed with her the first week of her new job to help out.  Half the month was gone before I got home.  So there wasn't much on the photography front for September. But My Guy and I took advantage of being in downtown Houston after dropping off Grad Girl for her first day of work to visit the Houston Museum of Natural Science.  I didn't think to take my DSLR, but my I-Phone 12 got a good work out during our tour of the Cockrell Butterfly Center.  

Owl Butterfly

 

Blue Morpho Butterfly (brilliant blue when their wings are open)

Postman Butterfly

Tiger Butterfly

Variable Longwing Butterfly

Doris Longwing Butterfly

Tiger Longwing Butterfly

Clipper Butterfly

Butterflies are a lot like flowers, you can't just photograph one. I have lots more photos of butterflies, but these are well framed photos, probably as good as I could do with the DLSR.  Some of the shots have been cropped a bit, but overall, the I-Phone took some good shots. 

I did pull out the DLSR one morning to capture the morning sunshine coming into the office (Canon 70D DLSR with a Tamron 18-400 telephoto lens)

I'm not sure it's a great photo, but I wanted to try to capture the light and shadow of the rising sun outside the office window. It was the shadows of the leaves that first caught my attention.  I'm considering this shot an interesting experiment. I still need to tweak a few variables to get a great shot, but it wasn't a complete miss. 

Of all the butterfly photos, I like the blue Clipper butterfly shot the best. It's currently displayed on the computer display as the background.  Do you have a favorite?