June 2022 - A fun trip and a UFO Challenge

My month of June was a pretty good one as they go - despite a stressful start to the month (some work, some non work), the rest of the month played out quite well. The highlight was a trip that my Girl Scout troop has been planning for 2 years - we packed up my van and headed east to Philadelphia and Washington, DC. It was a fun-filled six days with lots of sights, great meals, and fun times that we will all remember. We went to several places I'd been before in both cities but also got to see some new places. It was fun to see the old favorites through their eyes and the new ones through mine. And the driving through the cities wasn't even bad. We pretty much parked and used public transportation (or our feet!) in each city, so there wasn't too much city driving. It was a great way to finish off Junior year for these scouts as we look forward to our Senior year. 

Elfreth's Alley in Philadelphia

Independence Hall

World War II Memorial with Washington Monument in the background

Harriet Tubman quilt by Bisa Butler, at the National African-American Museum

A hot day at the National Zoo!

In the crafting front, I also had a pretty good month. I continued to plug away at my Stitchmaynia starts from last month as well as my projects that had already been in progress. I finished one of them - Let's Talk Stitching from Hands on Design. I stitched the piece that will be an insert to a project bag and used a Sulky thread conversion. It was my first time stitching with Sulky and I liked it - nice variegation, easy to work with, and only one strand. I stitched this piece on 28 count Slate by Picture this Plus, and it was a really nice piece of fabric. I have more of this linen and another piece that will use it in my "start soon" bag of stitching projects. 

Let's Talk Stitching - bag insert finish

I also started and finished Stitch All The Things berry from Erica Michaels. My mom and I decided we wanted to stitch one this year and we both started and finished our stitching within a few days. This was a fun and quick one to stitch and I even enjoyed the over 1 stitching for the little words. This one is stitched on a piece of mystery linen, I think 30 count. It was in a baggie of pieces I bought at the local guild sale last year. 

Stitch All the Things berry

I also kept the progress going on 5 other projects, doing a mostly 2-3 day rotation. I will share here the ones that Robin and Carol wanted to see some more progress on from my Stitchmaynia post - Dahlia, a Mill Hill kit that went on the Girl Scout trip with me, and Graveyard Goblins. I worked my way down to the specialty stitches on this one and boy are they fun! 

Dahlia progress - mid June

Graveyard Goblins progress - late June

On the quilting side, I really didn't do much before my trip, except run downstairs to make a new travel pillowcase the morning we left. I made it in record time so that I'd have it for the trip! 

When we got home, I had a 3-day weekend and used the time to go through a few of my UFOs - I decided to give myself a little challenge to finish up three of them by the end of July and make progress on two others. I've not been sewing as much lately, so hope this challenge will have me getting a bit of the quilting bug back. I'd also really like to finish up some of the UFOs that have been lingering for a while. I got going with some quilting on Sunrise Over the Mountain, a paper pieced Deb Karasik quilt. I used several threads on this one and did custom quilting. I have two others this will go with and look forward to being able to hang the three together. 

Sunrise Over the Mountain - quilting detail

Next up was finishing up my pumpkin blocks that I made at quilt retreat last fall. I decided to finish them as a vertical wall hanging, so they look a little like pumpkins stacked on each other. I got the top done quickly and even got this one loaded and quilted before the month ended. 

Pumpkin Stack quilting detail

Plans for July (which are already well underway) are to finish up two quilt I worked on in June along with finding three others to help me finish out my UFO challenge. On the stitching front, I'd like to keep plugging away on my WIPs and also have a new start or two. I am going to dig around in my stitched UFOs as well and try to find a few to finish up soon. It would be nice to whittle down that list as well, as it is a much longer list than the quilt UFOs! 

Here are my stats for the month:

Quilting Time with Kate at Life-in-Pieces: 15 minutes of crafting 22/30 days in June for 73%. I am pleased with that given my travel in June. 

Stash Report with Donna at quiltpaintcreate: 

Fabric added this month: 0 yards
Fabric used this month: 1 3/4 yards
Fabric added year to date: 3 1/2 yards
Fabric used year to date: 20 1/8 yards
Net fabric used: 16 5/8 yards

So far, July has started well - I've had a week of company shutdown, which I think is even better than a week of vacation! I've been home and have made some good progress on projects, but have also done several "I need to get to this" things. I'll be back soon to share what's been keeping me busy!