Practically a mid month check in

Wow... once again time has just flown along.  I have been plugging away with Meadowland column construction, and finally have a finished top ready for bed top measurements!

 and pondering Dash to the finish border options,

I used the fabric provided in the kit for binding to make this green pieced border.  It was always my intention to carry these triangular shapes into the border.

And I am currently angsting over whether to cut into this exquisite floral to create a final wider border.

Still a tiny bit small on the bed.

I have been playing with fabric selections for a quilt for Dylan.  Almost 16, he has actually asked for a quilt after lots of years of duvet usage.  What can a quilt mama do??

I have had this fat quarter for a number of years just waiting for the right project.

I am slowly accumulating coordinates... not quite there yet... but very close.

Now that my design floor is clear I could start playing with some layouts.

The importance of mini goals

After patting myself on the back for being so organised, August has been passing me by with barely a skerrit of progress.  Although I jotted down some monthly goals... I neglected to write down any mini goals... resulting in almost nothing being achieved.  Some of this I will blame on winter and rain and cold and general dreariness.  Some of it is just poor planning and minimal motivation.

So, this weekend it all changed and I wrote those goals... And you know what?  Quite a lot of them happened!

Last weekend I got partly through the next This Little Piggy block...

And it took most of the week to decide on chicken colours and get some eyes and nostrils on the cow... And decide on block backgrounds and placements.

Filling up nicely.

So the mini goal for the next block was to trace the elements.  Done!  And you know what... it was pretty easy to do the trunk... then the tree... the piggies were a bit more detailed, but in the end not really that much work.  And look, another block ready for blanket stitch.

Now we're really getting somewhere!

Oops, forgot the sun!  This is going to be positioned partly outside the block so is not attached until the sashing and borders are completed.

Also on the agenda was to cut another Meadowland block ready to stitch up during the week. 

And to start piecing the Dash to the Finish quilt into rows.  Row 1 is done.

I have started construction of Nadias half square triangle quilt and have been using this as an intermittent leader and ender project.  My goal for this month is to get this bottom left third constructed.

Just need a few more half square triangles to fill in the blanks! 

I may be sick of half square triangles by the end of this one 😂

End of month roundup

It wasn't until today, the last day of the month, that it seemed at all possible to get some of my monthly tasks finished. 

The month started with 6 tasks:

I made great progress with the Meadowland blocks... Love this floral and neutral spot!

And to top it off I got these bonus units sewn... not quite finished, but a good start for next month.

Huge news is that I finished off the last of the FMQ on Loosely Woven... so I'm all ready to start binding over the weekend.  Finishing this corner was the best feeling ever!

I wanted to get one more Dash to the Finish block done...

And almost  finished a bonus second one as a leader ender project!

And finishing two Patchwork City blocks seemed impossible on Monday, but a few seams here and there... and the addition of a sneaky stripe in this block...

... meant I got all the units finished today for block 24...

... to add to block 23...

... and June is going to be a busy month finishing the last block - 25, a little bit of sashing, borders and finishing touches and this one will be a top!

Wiggly quilting...

... and binding... this quilt is so close!

So yeah... 5 out of 6 and it felt so good to get those stickers on!

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!