Mid month catch up... chasing one's tail!

March is just one of those hectic months isn't it?  March is crazy month at my work, and although I am in a great place deadline wise at work, I am still finding the overall stress of the month daunting and it has affected my crafting life also.

I have been busily buzzing away at my Meadowland blocks and they are so addictive.  The cutting of one block results in cuting pieces for other blocks.... so it is always pulling you forward (or dragging you into a black hole depending on your perspective).  The QAL instructions require blocks to be completed over 4 weeks, so I was optimistically hoping to complete four each week.  Yeah... nah... not happening.  I have scaled back production estimates back to two blocks per week and this still feels like it is taking up all my time.

I am really enjoying the fabric combinations and simple large piecing though!

So today was a bit of a reminder that there are other things I am supposed to be concentrating on and that I hadn't really achieved much so far, so I removed the miscellaneous piecing from covering up my diary and reassessed the month so far.

Not a lot to report

One of my broken down tasks was to trace the applique design onto my Timeless Treasures half finished corner.  So right, I pulled it out and it took like 3 minutes.  Next goal was to get the small sections of bias stem sewn down this week.  Right... another few minutes and I had these pinned down, and a few more minutes and the first of three was done.  Ok... now we're getting somewhere.

I have set another goal of sewing two lengths of thread on the Sugar Club binding.  Although this is a bit of a slow process... it will eventually get finished.

I attached the flange binding per the Missouri Quilt Companys tutorial... then instead of machine stitching through the flange seam, I decided to use running stitch and 12wt thread to stitch it down.  It is quite subtle, but I do like it, and once I am more comfortable with the technique I would be more likely to use more contrasting thread.  Although this was using stuff I already had.

I am thinking that keeping my goals small and very task specific is the key... so I will see how this variation to the diary planning works out.

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!