June 2025 - Jumping into summer

What a fun month - we wrapped up celebrating our high school graduate, I visited with a friend, had a big accomplishment at work, and went on a family vacation. The start of the month was cooler than normal and the end hotter, both of which made for good sewing and stitching time in the evenings and weekends. 

My son with his brag table at his grad party

I had two goals for this month for my sewing - and accomplished one and a partial second. The first one was to get the blocks made for my Acrobatic quilt (I shared the fat quarters I planned to use last month) and my stretch goal was to get the top together - stretch goal achieved! As you can see, it was a pretty easy pattern - you stack two fabrics, cut them, and then switch the center triangles. The blocks finish big and you trim them down. I think this will make a fun lap quilt for the fall/Halloween season. 

Acrobatic Quilt Top

My second goal was to figure out what I was going to do for my challenge project and I'd say I got halfway there. I pulled a fabric that will go with the challenge fabric, looked at a few patterns, and that's where it ends. I don't have a solid plan, but do have more ideas than I started the month with. More to come on this as I need to get working on it soon. 

On the stitching side, I had two finishes - both were pieces started during StitchMaynia this year, so 3 of my 5 new starts are now complete from May. The first finish is Summer from the Hands on Design Mad for Plaid series. This is my third season to stitch and I love the pop of purple in this one. 

Mad for Plaid Summer 
Stitched on 28 ct. Charcoal Lugana
(and sneak peek for July, already FFO'ed! but not by the end of June)

My second finish was a fun patriotic piece. I've struggled in the last several years to stitch patriotic given the highly divisive nature of our political environment in the last ~10 years, but I am slowly trying to get back to it. This pattern is probably my first ever Blackbird piece to stitch and I picked up the pattern at a sale table at retreat a few years back. I've had it partly kitted since then and finally pulled together the remaining threads to work on it. This one took some time with that big house, but I am really happy with the result. I used some overdyed and some DMC threads in this one and plan to finish it as a pillow. 

Reward of Merit Pinkeep
Stitched on 30ct Lambswool linen

I worked on four other projects through the month as well and two of them are getting close to a finish. Two others will still take a while and I am enjoying flipping back and forth between my older and newer works in progress. 

A friend came to town the second weekend of June and although I didn't get any pictures with her, my mom and I had a great day hanging out with her. We had lunch together, shopped at Back Door Quilts, chatted and stitched, and had dinner together. It was so fun to see her and show her a few of our favorite places. On our trip to Back Door, I picked up some fabric and patterns - this is the first fabric I've added to my stash this year and I have plans for all of it. The yellow in the bottom right will be a lining for a new bag I plan to start working on soon, and the other fabrics will be used for gifts for upcoming retreats. I also picked up a few patterns, one of which is an embroidery book with some of the cutest embroidery I've seen in a while. 

New additions - fabric and patterns

The month ended with a family vacation to northern California - we visited Lassen Volcanic National Park, Muir Woods, Monterey, and San Francisco - it was a great week of seeing new places with some hiking, a fantastic aquarium, some shopping, and a meal with family who lives on the west coast. Overall a great time. 

Muir Woods

Still lots of snow at Lassen Volcanic National Park

Monterey Aquarium (a school of sardines swimming above us)

San Francisco Love tour on a VW Bus!

The Warden's house at Alcatraz

It was a great month, not as much stitching time due to all the activities, but still very happy with the things I finished and those I made progress on. 

Here are the monthly stats: 

Stitching time with Kate at Life in Pieces: 

22/30 days with at least 15 minutes crafting = 71%

Stash Report with Donna at quiltpaintcreate: 

Fabric added this month: 4 yards

Fabric used this month: 3 yards

Fabric added year to date: 4 yards

Fabric used year to date: 9 1/8 yards

Net Fabric used: 5 1/8 yards

Project completion tracking: 

Stitching projects: 2 finishes, 0 FFOs = 40 projects waiting to be fully finished

Quilting projects: 1 new start, 0 finishes = 6 projects waiting to be fully finished

Hope you had a great month and were able to stay out of the heat with some good sewing or stitching time!