January Month End

Time for a quick update on January's goals and progress....

The journal layout...

1 My main focus goal for this month was to finish This Little Piggy.  Finish quilting.  Bind... label and blog.  Yay... big tick for this one!

2 Second goal was to finish piecing Bursting Star.  Also done!

3 was to baste Dylan's Hawthorn Quilt.  Done!  Although this horrendous hot weather was not helpful!

4 My Butterfly Patch BOM goal involved finishing the last block and assembling the remaining pieces.  I added to the goal and finished the border.  Bonus!

5 Ultimate beginner quilt... Finish row 1... after much angst this finally was completed.

Then I had some additional tasks...
A  Complete first block on the Happy Cloud Sampler scrap edition

 B Finish section one of Line Dried

I ahmed and ahhed about whether to start the Summer Sampler 2017 and finally pulled the following from stash.  I'm pretty much following the colours suggested although with a bit of leeway depending on how the stash fabrics fitted together.

And the first block!  This is actually block 9 of the sampler but is the central block.  I wanted to see how the fabrics were going to work together in this focal spot.

I also had a couple of projects that didn't have goals, but I wanted to remain on my agenda.

Sweet Escape... I managed to complete enough blocks for the first quarter and have just started sewing these together.

And finally my scrap Transire Quilt... little 2" cut scrappy plus block/nine patches.  I have actually made a few more since this photo was taken.  I've worked out the best way of fitting this project in is to ensure I lay out at least one block at the start of the sewing session and use it as a leader ender as necessary.  I don't have a huge collection of squares cut out, so I am just adding a bit of cutting time each session to cut a block or two.  The colours are just meandering as my scrap collection changes...

And that's January's progress.  As I work casually throughout this month, I usually start heaps more projects than i can carry on with through out the year.  We will have to see how successful this year turns out.  I have way too many projects needing quilting which is often a long slow process for me.  My overall goal for the year is to get a mix of old and new projects finished... both just tops finished and completely finished... although i am not going to put a quantity on that.  January's success has been a confidence builder that i might just get there!

Happy New Year!

December seemed to disappear rather quickly... school prizegivings... appointments and end of year activities seemed to take over and all of a sudden its Xmas and then New Years.

My December goals were not fully met... but progressed well so happy all round.

I wanted to get the last applique block completed for the Homespun Magazine BOM My Butterfly Patch and this was fused pending blanket stitch.  This whole project fell off the radar (as they do) so I now hope to get this top sorted out over the next few months.  It is so close!

I have managed to get Nadias Bursting Star quilt top fully sewn together and added plain side borders today.  Still needs to be pressed but looking good.

The start of the year has meant new planning tools!  I downloaded some new calendars and WIP recording pages...

And sent hubby off to buy me a plain unlined journal to keep everything in.  He bought this one with a beautiful floral cover which I LOVE!

Snipping and sticking... and its all starting to come together.  This year I am using two pages per month... a calendar page and a to do list which includes a monthly focus.

It didn't take long to fill up several pages of WIPs which I split into projects being constructed and those awaiting quilting.

I also started a new project list which has 4 projects already. 

The first is a scrap sampler quilt  by Happy Cloud Creations which I'm going to tackle over the next 9 months... this is block 1, and I need to make a couple of nine patch blocks each month for an Irish Chain effect.  These are 16" blocks so will finish with a 72" quilt including sashing.

My second project is a scrap Plus quilt (inspired by the free pattern 'Transire')... using 2" cut squares.  I know this is a successful size of scrap and fits well as a leader ender project.

And these scrap projects have been allocated their own small tub to keep them contained... hopefully!

I am make super progress on quilting This Little Piggy... and have great hopes of getting this quilt finished by the end of the month... enough so that I am going to join One Monthly Goal for the first time...  January link here

I have also resurrected the Sweet Escape log cabins and started filling the design wall.

Ok... that's enough for now.

Keeping it real

Hard to believe is is March already.  What they say about time speeding up as you get older appears to be true!

The close of February saw a few unfinished items on my To Do calendar.

I never did finish my skirt muslin and I only finished 3 of the 5 Patchwork City blocks I hoped to achieve.  But February was also the first month back at work after school holidays and the hottest month this summer (so there was about a week in there where it was just too hot to sew)... So all in all still very happy with progress.

Anyway... a new month a new list and a chance to shake up some of those goals and revise whether they were too ambitious and how to prevent those projects from disappearing into the WIP pile of DOOM!

Back to some of the things I DID achieve:

I have one block left to make in the Tilda Homespun magazine BOM but had felt like I needed a break from this project.  Consequently I decided to work on sashing the finished blocks, and completing construction of the first two rows of this project.

While this wasn't hard or complicated, it was nice to sew some simple seams and start to see this project really turn into something.

I also pulled out this old Craftsy kit WIP which started the year with 4 completed blocks.  I think I've got 8 finished now... well on the way.  This is another good piecing project which I just need to plan the cutting for... to sneak through a few more blocks when I have a spare moment.

I am on a BLUE row for Patchwork City.

One more of these diamond shaped log cabins and I'll have another block completed.

And a new sew along started this week for the Meadowland Quilt.  Sometimes a pattern comes along that you just know will match perfectly with fabrics in your stash.

I started this bundle with the cute hedgehog print.  It has some very pretty colours in the background, with some awesome neutrals in the hedgehog...

It was ridiculously easy to amass this generous pile of fabrics!

And after much dithering about what fabrics to actually put together (very tempting to put into a bag and draw out randomly) I got my test block laid out.

And hot on its heels... block 2 because I wanted to have a go with a neutral block and some directional fabric.

And the two blocks full constructed and together.

I think March is going to be a lot of fun!

September catch up

Today I spent some time looking at the Month Five Homespun Tilda BOM - the central block of the nine patch.

Looking at the instructions briefly, it seemed to be mostly embroidery.  Gasp!  That could not be good.  I made up the pieced background per the instructions, and started laying out some applique elements based on the embroidered designs instead.

Keeping it fairy simple, and after a few tweaks, and shifts around - I have ended up with a design I really like that shows off the fabrics as much as possible (after all, that background is pretty full on) and it is all fused down.

I still have the blanket stitch to do, but overall I think it looks very happy in the centre of the design.

Six blocks of nine done!  Over half way!

Also on the agenda this week is a hmm... new project... if I say that really quickly will anyone really notice?

An insta-friend is running a sew along of the Patchwork City book by Elizabeth Hartman, and I decided to follow along.  With a few different options for final layouts in the book - I decided I really like the first layout which is a rainbow grid - and finding that I had a bundle of 25 solid fat quarters in a somewhat rainbow meant that half the hard work had already been done.

I numbered each of the fat quarters so that I could reference the progression of colour with the quilt layout - and found that pulling matching fabrics out of my stash was embarrassingly easy.

Having sewn a few Elizabeth Hartman quilts before I knew that there would be a lot of pieces - and that some of them would probably be quite tiny (this square in the middle is 1" x 1" cut).  Laying the bits out on my big square ruler makes it easy to cart them off to my sewing machine to sew.

And so the first block was sewn.  I managed to get really weird stretching with this one... even though all the pieces went together really easily and accurately.

Another couple of afternoons sewing and I had completed the full set of 3 multisized blocks that makes up the first week.

And completed with the Robert Kaufman Essex Linen "Black" sashing.

Luckily the sashing has helped to pull those distorted seams - and this black linen has such a great texture and provides ample contrast.

As these blocks require quite small quantities of fabric - I managed to mix in some of my scraps too.  Always a bonus!

The blocks sit a bit awkwardly on the design wall colourwise... but variety is the spice of life

And I have continued to play with the Timeless Traditions BOM blocks, starting the addition of the setting triangles around the 6" blocks.  And isn't this little coral block just the cutest?

I'm using one of the lighter neutral sketch fabrics - which is actually perfect! I wanted something that was similar to the Feather background - but provided a bit of contrast... and set off the colours in the blocks... couldn't be more perfect.